RWBY: Desertion (Remastered)
by DatRtfantho
Summary: Gage Sim deserted the Kingdoms, isolating himself to the outskirts of Mountain Glenn for almost unknown reasons... at least until he was found by four girls calling themselves Team RWBY. And not that long after meeting them, he begins to form a bond with a certain Blonde Brawler while one of his other new friends learns a deadly secret that they'll go to lengths to hide... YangxOC.
1. Pilot

**Author's Note: **Five years. Five long years... That's how long it took for me to say screw it and make this. Hello and welcome to RWBY: Desertion (Remastered!) This story was adapted from the original RWBY: Desertion fanfiction I started back in 2014, and that was a 60 chapter long story, which still has a currently on-going sequel story. This was made in celebration for the five year anniversary of RWBY: Desertion and will be a smaller, more plot focused, and more self-aware adaptation of the original. So in places where the story may seem rushed or jumpy, remember this.

I'll still be doing my best to keep things spaced out evenly. Chapter length can be massive at times btw, and just so you know I'm trying to make this a slight AU story that happens between Volumes 2 & 3. So hopefully people could start reading this right after watching RWBY Volume 2 and it won't feel out of place, but for returning readers of the series… just know that you don't have to worry about this.

The sequel, Desertion: Part Two won't be affected by this remake aside from having it's early chapters updated so it looks more clean. Anyways, that's all I've got to say before starting this journey over once again. I hope it's able to grab onto people and keep them even more intrigued than the original one did, but I guess we'll find out soon enough. Now, without any further interruptions… let's start back from the beginning, one last time.

**WARNING**: This is an M rated story. Blood, Violence, Harsh language, Sexual content (Smut, Lemons, etc.) and feels are included. The whole package!

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own RWBY. It belongs to Monty Oum (God Bless), Miles Luna, Kerry Shawcross, and Gray G. Haddock. I only own my OC. Any music referenced or mentioned is owned by their respective artists as well.

_**Edit: **_Forgot to mention that this story is also available on _Wattpad_ and the _RWBY Amino! _

**Song: **Hold On Hope by Dan Gautreau

…

**_Chapter 1 - Pilot_**

_It wasn't that long after the Vale Breach that Yang Xiao Long began to have a recurring nightmare… well, it was more of a dream rather than something frightening. Either way, she would wake up in a cold sweat upon witnessing it each and every time… only to go on and not remember most of it for the rest of that day. Needless to say it kept her up at night, and after about a week of this she managed to piece it together pretty well inside of her mind. It was short, ominous… and went a little like this._

_There would be the normal black, blank, and timeless void of nothingness that was apart of her slumber for a short while until a twinkling sound would begin, something akin to wind chimes that were being gently pressed together over and over again. Then light would fill the void, and it revealed Beacon Academy's main courtyard as it appeared under the cover of night before Yang would finally be seen walking out in the middle of the structure._

_Her steps were calm and methodical as he legs swayed, but they quickly started to slow to a cautionary speed as she reached the center of the courtyard where one of the academy's many statues were erected. The reason she stopped however, was because of the presence of another woman. She had black long hair just like the blonde's, wore dark and red clothes that consisted of a dress, a skirt, leggings, boots, and a full-faced grimm mask that was colored eerily similar to one that would've been worn by the White Fang._

_Yang had seen this person before. It was the same woman that seemingly saved her during her fight against the vicious criminal named Neo when Team RWBY tried to stop a hijacked train under the abandoned city of Mountain Glenn. This preceded the breach, and Yang might've not been there to help the City of Vale if it wasn't for this mystery person._

_The blonde stopped and faced her directly while she also stood in a way so there was a good distance between them both, but Yang didn't seem that scared of her. Instead, she looked to be both curious and wary of the woman… so when the air between them began to grow dense, the brawler questioned her outright. No hesitation needed._

_"...Who are you?"_

_The woman said nothing at first and just continued to stare at the younger girl for a few moments before she turned her head to one side, bowed it a bit, and reached for her grimm mask with one of her hands. She then slowly began to remove it from her face, and as it came off completely… the woman began to look familiar. Too familiar in fact, almost like she was an exact mirrored image of Yang, but with darker colors._

_When the mask was finally gone and could no longer shroud the quote on quote 'doppelganger', the woman in black and red turned and looked up into Yang's now red eyes with her own matching pair, and could only smile with relief as she answered the blonde with one hell of an ominous statement..._

_"Yang... We have a lot to talk about."_

* * *

_**~...Now it's Time to Say Goodbye!~**_

_**~TO THE THINGS WE LOVED, AND THE INNOCENCE OF YOUTH!~**_

_**~How the time seemed to fly!~**_

_**~-FROM OUR CAREFREE LIVES, and the solitude and peace we always knew!~**_

* * *

**Team RWBY**

**Three Weeks After the Vale Breach...**

It's been nearly a month since Vale's containment breach, and not that long after the event Team RWBY had been assigned to return to Mountain Glenn, without a Huntsman, to scout out and eliminate any remaining Creatures of Grimm in the city so the Atlesian army could move in and investigate the White Fang's underground staging area. Most of the infestation was eliminated during the event itself, so the rest of the stragglers were just seen as fodder.

The team didn't see this as a complicated assignment though, more so that it was just a nice way to take a break from Beacon Academy without the worry of taking down a cult of radical faunus along the way. Just some good old Grimm slaying… and now, it seemed like one member of the team needed this more than the others.

Inside of the city at this time, there seemed to be a single tired and nearly flawless lilac pupil that was stuck in its place as it stared out towards a barren and already explored concrete jungle. Destroyed, moss covered, and half-overgrown buildings surrounded the eye's field of view… with it being all that it could see, until-

"Hey, Yang! You doing okay?!"

A semi-conscious Yang Xiao Long then shined back to life as her little sister Ruby asked her this with some slight concern being heard through her tone, with the rest being mostly curiosity. As she questioned her older sister, their black and white colored corgi named Zwei began to bark at the blonde as well… since the Team managed to sneak him out of Beacon, again.

The smaller Rose really just questioned her older sister because of the fact that she already had bags under her eyes, and also because of how quiet the group had become due to her lack of icebreakers, or shitty puns. The blonde brawler just seemed to be completely tired, if such a thing was possible.

"Yeah, i'm fine Ruby. Guess i just haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately..."

And finally there were glimpses of Team RWBY as her teammates Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna remained ahead of the two sisters, occasionally looking back at the blonde brawler out of concern. They both didn't choose to say anything, since they were all pretty tired after what's happened during the last month.

Let's just say that Yang never got her wish to 'sleep forever'. Instead it was just get up, go to class, kill grimm, and then sleep. It's been three weeks ever since their first initial mission to Mountain Glenn with Dr. Oobleck… but unlike him, the four girls didn't have a class to teach. It was kind of a good thing he didn't come either, because when a once in a lifetime opportunity came stomping on by... He wasn't there to intervene.

Their more rowdy team member nearly came back to life when this occurred, and that event turned out to be the sighting of a lone Goliath type Grimm. The team was quick to reach a cliffside that formed from the collapsed part of the city, and it provided a perfect view of the creature as it slowly roamed through the countryside surrounding Mountain Glenn.

"Whoa… Ruby, that's one of those Goliaths you saw last time, right?" Yang asked, as Ruby was quick to kind of disregard the creature's presence. She basically ignored it, and crouched next to the edge of the cliff tiredly as she scooped Zwei up into her arms. "Yeah, but we don't need to worry about it. It's old and knows not to attack us."

Her older sister smiled though, and put her hands on her hips as he looked to their left where a pile of collapsed concrete was formed into a clear path that could lead down to the bottom of the cliff. "...Well in that case, i'm gonna get a closer look at it-" And as she went to start heading down, Ruby chose to interject with almost unmatchable speed.

"Wait, why are you interested in it now anyway Yang? Before I was the one who was staring at it while you guys were setting up camp!"

The next few bouts between the team occurred as each of them just casually jumped from different landings on their way down into the forested outskirts of the city, and Yang generally seemed to feel like she was on top of things… despite still feeling pretty sleep deprived.

Something like that never really stopped her from being talkative though, "We were on a mission to stop the White Fang then. We're not anymore though, so now I'D like to be the one to run around and watch the undead circus over there… we've earned a break anyway, right guys?" She asked this while looking up at her team as they were also climbing down with a lot more caution, and that was when Weiss suddenly erupted.

"What?! Yang, we're not at the zoo! This whole city is a free-fire zone!"

"Weiss, we're like ants to that thing! And like Ruby said, it won't do anything unless we provoke it..."

Then the blonde waited and watched as Blake hopped down onto the same rickety platform as her before she wrapped an arm around her partner and smiled sweetly at the stray. "Oh come on, it'll be quick! ...You've got my back, right Blake?" Yang asked as her partner chose to trust her choice blindly, if just this one time in particular.

"...Sure?" She replied nervously but soon figured that it's been a long day for all of them, including herself… and it wasn't like they were going to try and kill the giant Grimm. It'd be quite a sight too, as long as each of them remained cautious. "-But let's just hurry, it's going to be dark soon."

And after that last forewarning, each of the four girls leapt off of their respective platforms and tried to perform their best superhero landings respectively, landing next to each other in their usual Team order before Weiss looked over at everyone else, and smirked whilst she shook her head passive aggressively...

"You guys are going to be the death of someone... Not me, but someone."

…

**Gage Sim**

**One Year, Six Months after Desertion**

…

Somewhere on one of Mountain Glenn's more brush covered cliffs, there was what looked to be a makeshift tent near the edge of the place, and even as the sun shined through many of it's holes and tears, the sound of light breaths could be heard coming from the tiny shelter. The tent itself was very small in nature too, and because of that it's occupant's brown shoes could be even be seen sticking out of the tarp's mouth as birds chirped all around it…

The sound of them seemed calm and soothing for a while as the person inside of it continued to rest… but eventually, what felt like a large impact far off in the distance ended up spooking the local wildlife, mainly a murder of crows. They stopped and flew away as the ground shook once again, with the rapid chirps and caws being the thing that shook the forest dweller awake.

But for some reason, he didn't wake up peacefully. With the loud and screeching sound of white noise causing him to jolt up off of the blanket under him, and the man gasped loudly as he stopped and raised his body up halfway while he started to pant like he'd just had the wind knocked out of him. It felt like it too, and that made the man groan a bit after he realized he was safe from whatever that noise was.

He looked to be a nearly nineteen year old teenager and his name was Gage Sim. From how he appeared, he had medium-length auburn colored hair with the front of the cut being seemingly to be swooned to one side, along with a patchy/unkempt short-length beard that had been left uncut for a while now. Scruffy would've honestly been the one word to describe him.

Pretty soon he noticed that one of his hands was gripping the knife sheath that was on his thigh, and he soon just exhaled as he instead chose to stretch by putting his arms back behind his head. And after he felt settled again, he reached into his back pocket before he took out two brown fingerless gloves and started to put them on. But while he did this the man heard something jingle not that far from him… not a small object like windchimes, but something that was a lot wider. That was a tune he honestly feared worse than anything that was off in the distance, and it alarmed him so much that his turquoise eyes went wide before he lurched back and pulled a shotgun out of his tent.

It was a modified Model 1887 equipped with a rifle stock and rusted ACOG sight. Our dweller was quick to pull it's action lever back and forth as he nearly jumped out of his tent, ran behind it, and was about to blindly aim at the noise… until he saw the source of it. In actuality, Gage had set up his own sort of makeshift alarms with chicken wires and old food cans that were set between various trees, and were supposed to make noise if anything curious or deadly chose to try and catch him while he was napping.

He now realized that it turned out to be kind of a bad idea though, as a horse was just standing idle at one of the wire lines and had one of the metal cans in her mouth. Chewing it slowly. This steed turned out to be his own horse as well, "Seriously? Again?!" He asked his friend, even though he knew he wasn't getting an answer.

Relief was quick to fill him as he lowered the gun and walked over only to grab the can, sigh, and pull it away from his steed's mouth as he shook his head. "*sigh* ...One of these days I'm gonna shoot first and ask questions later. Questions like, 'why couldn't she just leave the damn cans alone'?" Believe it or not he was still relieved on the inside, but frustrated too.

It was all just baffling as he watched his horse slowly bite the metal shell one last time until he just turned around, chucked it far off of the cliff... and turned back to lightly pat the horse on the side of her neck after he got one good huff out of his system. This wasn't the first time for him to be faked out by the fact that his horse loved shiny objects, and he doubted that it'd be the last… though, it wasn't like she could help it anyway.

The horse could only exhale in a sweet tone before it nonchalantly began to rest her chin on top of his forehead, like she didn't mind at all that he just scold her. This made Gage sigh again, before he patted her neck once more and walked back over to his encampment. "...Just give me five minutes. I'll give you something once I'm done packing, alright?"

He got another tiny snort as a response, and took that as a yes. So, with that he began his usual morning routine. Tried his best to wash himself with the limited amount of water he had, packed up his tent and can-alarms, cleaned his weapons before he put his shotgun on his back and made sure that his knife hadn't fallen out of its sheath, fixed his horse's saddle so it could hold some of his supplies, and last but not least, he got dressed.

He put his black shirt back on, put on a worn grey hoodie and pulled out what looked like a sage/olive colored leather jacket out of his tent before he rolled it back up, and he put that on top of everything. He already had a pair of matching, ripped dark brown jeans and roughed up/duct-taped boots on as well, but nearly forgot about the last part of his outfit.

Gage remembered it just as he came back to fit the saddle he had back onto his horse, and that was when he pulled a sage bandana out of his back pocket before he stared at it intently for a moment, and tied it around where his jacket sleeve covered up his right bicep. The whole time he kept staring at it with a breathless concentration… until he reached into one of his horse's saddlebags and took out what looked like a small grain-cookie and fed it to her,

"Here. Not a lot left, so don't eat too fast…"

He was more so reiterating that fact to himself, and since hunting any animals in a place like this was a feat in itself, the two partners had a new choice ahead of them if they were going to make it through the next month alive. Either risk going back to the city and refill any supplies they could find… or go out further into Vale's outskirts, and scavenge what they can. One of those options had better insurance for them than the other, and Gage knew this. He didn't know how to approach re-entering the city though, since the last time the pair was there… they had unexpected company. Nearly killed him in the process, and for a while the two friends were separated in the dead of winter.

That was something he didn't want to remember right now though, and as he finished up attaching his rolled up tent to Beanie's saddle, Gage turned back and looked out over towards the view of the land that this plateau had to offer. It was high up enough that he could actually see the ruined city far off in the distance… along with a single Goliath that seemed to just be roaming the wild forest without a care in the world.

He minded it at first and just assumed it was older and slower than the rest of it's group, and he was about to go back to pondering about his current predicament… until that pesky undead elephant broke his concentration yet again. By now he'd heard it just trumpet a few times with its trunk here and there, but this time an explosion rang out from it again.

Like… an actual detonation. Gage jumped a bit by the suddenness of it as well, and glanced down from the city to see that a small cloud of dust and powder was smoking right off of the creature's face. That sight nearly made his jaw drop, and he stepped away from the edge of the cliff with caution right as the Goliath let out another deafening bellow.

The booming groan even gave off a shockwave if you could believe it, and all the trees around their little camp shook violently as Gage nearly lost his footing from the wind, and Beanie hollered out loudly due to how loud the call was. When he caught himself and could now clearly see that the beast was throwing a fit and calling for help, all Gage could really do was stammer with amazement… but not for the reason you would think.

"...Who could be that STUPID-?!"

Then right before he could finish, what seemed like a symphony of howls and other animalistic cries came from throughout the surrounding area, from every hole or burrow that the grimm thrived in… and soon enough an overzealous aura of dread came over the two partners on the cliffside.

"...Shit." Was the only thing Gage had to say to this. It was like a heat of hot, raw energy brushed against him and chilled his bones to the core in some weird dichotomistic way.

Being grounded like that was quite the experience, and he could only imagine what it was like for the people at the epicenter of this emotional bomb. For them he usually would've just hoped for the best… except this brought the attention of the Grimm towards the path he was about to take. The city was his only option of surviving now as much as he hated that fact, and these undead animals are about to block him from it unless he chose to do something drastic.

...And unfortunately, Gage was already feeling a little creative today. Solving this problem wasn't an instantaneous decision for him to make, yet he believed that it was the only way for him to survive, along with whoever else was down there. "Beanie, get over here!"

He called his steed who fidgeted a bit, but remained calm enough to approach and allow for her caretaker to grab her reins and direct her head so it'd be looking towards Mountain Glenn. That only, and soon he just started pointing at the city before he tried to give her a command.

"GO. THERE. And don't stop. I'll find you on the way, just like last time!"

Gage asked the horse if she remembered as some sort of way to ease his own nerves, and when the horse snorted once more in a calmer tone, he just turned her around to face the forest and smacked her behind to get her to trot off into the treeline. "GO ON, GET!"

Beanie hollered again with another breath escaping from her nostrils and did as he instructed her to… he just hoped she was smart enough to not head in just one direction. He'd rather not lose her in battle either considering how messy that'd be, and it wasn't like she was his only way of getting down there.

After she was gone and vanished from the cliffside, Gage hesitantly moved back towards the edge and looked down the left side of the cliff to see that there was a pattern of connecting trees on various levels that had their branches outstretched in a way that would allow for him to swing down. He'd picked this location to camp at for that very reason in case he got attacked, not to mention that it looked like one hell of a ride down to the ground floor. In a manner of speaking.

"*sigh* ...I swear, if I get impaled-!"

So without very much hindsight or time on his hands, he took a few steps back, wiggled the stock of his shotgun to make sure that the weapon's gun strap would keep it in place on his back during flight, and let out a loud exasperated breath as he ran forward and eventually jumped off of the cliff's edge.

Gage aimed for the trees and got the angle right as he landed feet first onto one of his branches, and started to take the long way down with a few trips and recoveries along the way as he went from tree to tree. At this point he had some part of a plan already forming in his head… however, he'd soon learn that the situation was worse than he thought.

...

…**A Minute Earlier.**

...

Despite a mutual agreement being reached, Ruby and Weiss continued to try and counter this odd desire from the blonde by sharing their own quiet concerns whilst also watching Zwei like a hawk, but it soon boiled down to the team following Yang down into the countryside to make sure that no one ended up getting hurt. The Goliath included, so then no more Grimm could be drawn in.

Eventually after their trek brought the Team to a treeline that hid them all pretty well, Yang burst through the brush and held a bush apart with her hands so that Blake could take the first step out into the clearing that the giant grimm had chosen to roam down. She was the first to emerge, and one of the beast's giant feet landed right in front of the cat faunus, which made her jump from the force of its impact on the ground. A large pounding noise echoed throughout the area as well, and that was when the rest of the team came out to watch.

Blake cursed to herself, but was quickly out of breath after she nearly slammed herself into Ruby. She put her hands out to try and stop her, while Yang chuckled quietly for a quick second before she went out ahead and was the first to look up at the Goliath. Weiss hesitantly joined her afterwards just to get this whole thing over with, and by the time the team was all group together in their usual formation under the canopy of the forest… the goliath let out a trumpet-esque call once it raised its trunk as high as it could.

What the four girls didn't know was that this call wasn't some random display of it's docility… no. In actuality, it was a call for help since the creature was still by itself. And unfortunately, it didn't take long for 'help' to arrive. A pair of dark red eyes soon began to crawl through the tall grass and past the many towers of lumber that littered the forest, and it's gaze remained on the four girls until it reached striking distance.

None of them really were taking note of their surroundings when it would be more than crucial to their survival, and what happened next would nearly prove to be a fatal end for the girls. As the Goliath slowly turned its head towards RWBY to the point where only one of it's eyes kept its gaze on them all.

Each of the girls were taken aback by this and briefly froze in place, like if the beast's vision seemed to be based on movement... well, everyone except for Blake, as her heightened senses were quick to pick up on what was happening. Before she knew it her bow twitched on it's own once the faint snapping of a twig was heard, and after that it seemed like fight or flight kicked in.

"WATCH OUT!"

Her body moved faster than she could process, and with both arms she managed to push Yang and Weiss out of the way just before a Beowulf slashed at Blake's back. Thankfully though, one of her clones took her body's place just in time thanks to her semblance, and she appeared again in front of it, only to unsheath Gambol Shroud and send it's blade straight down the middle of the beast's head.

That stopped it dead in its tracks, but only more Grimm came once that wolf and the stray's clone dissipated into a combined black mist, with the team now activating/unsheathing all of their collective weapons as they dispersed and were promptly charged at by the rest of the beowulf pack. The short battle commenced right next to the Goliath's feet, and it didn't get involved because of how small the team was compared to it… however, that was until it's peaceful waltz was interrupted by one of the girls.

Bits and pieces of the fight contained a more offensive Ruby unloading a spin cycle of pain onto one of the Grimm with Crescent Rose, their defensive Weiss giving out calculated strikes to keep her own undead target a bay, our previously startled Blake as she held both of her blades now, and blocked a strike with her sharpened sheath while she shifted the main part of Gambol Shroud into its pistol form and fired back at the grimm that came at her.

As for Yang… well she was surprisingly taking a little too long to get back into her fighting spirit. The blonde was pursued by her own wolf as she tried to get back up off of the ground since she fell all the way down after Blake had pushed her. She continually rolled around on her back to avoid various downward stabs that came from the creature until she was able to get some footing again, and her first blow wasn't as calculated because of that.

She tried to strike the monster in the face at a slower speed than normal, so it used this to its advantage by ducking low and grasping Yang's wrist tightly as it rose back up and attempted to bite her neck. The blonde also tried to fire off a shot to add an extra punch to her attack, and because of that, the Beowulf was able to bend her hand back to the point where a round was fired up into the air behind the girl… which hit the Goliath right in the eye.

It was going to happen eventually, and the earth-shaking moan of pain was enough of a distraction for her to finally deliver one stunning blow to the grimm once her other gauntlet formed around her left fist. Yang buried her hand deep into its gut to the point where it coughed up some spittle all over her shoulder, and grossed her out enough to where she gasped and jumped back… which ended up being a reasonable, but critical mistake.

Because by this time their commotion just so happened to attract another pack of unwelcomed Grimm, with these creatures being a more fox/jackal type of canine. They were smaller and significantly less dangerous from the vicious wolf pack, but they still managed to distract the blonde just as easily.

She didn't sense their presence or even hear them until a symphony of hyena-like welts came from behind her. It was like they almost came out of nowhere from her perspective, and three of the 'dingos' began to attack her at once, and the blonde took two of the Grimm out before she ended up on the ground.

Their small scuffle gave enough time for the previously Injured beowulf to recover, and when she wrestled the last Jackal off of herself, Yang looked back to have her eyes become interlocked with the wolf's right as it reapproached and chose to pounce towards her. Her eyes widened, and she tried to get her hands up to defend but she wouldn't have enough time to turn around as she was lying on the ground still.

Luckily for her though… someone else had her back. Because as the beast's claws and fangs came inches from being embedded into Yang's flesh, a man she hadn't seen before leapt out and caught the beast by its stomach, almost carrying the grimm all the way back to where it was earlier before they both landed in the dirt. And upon impact the man struggled with the creature as he flipped it onto it's back, pulled out a large curved knife, and stabbed it right in the gut before he drove it up through its chest.

With that, the Beowulf just let out a large screeching yelp right before it exploded into a dark cloud of mist that clouded the stranger's figure from Yang… but she still kept staring at him. From she could tell, he was a few inches taller than her, had auburn colored hair, turquoise eyes, a scruffy face, and was dressed in dark green and brown clothing. The only thing she couldn't know at this point was his name.

The rest of Team RWBY turned to stare at him once they realized that the blonde had gotten herself in a tough spot but couldn't do anything to help right then, and they also did it mostly because it seemed like he came out of nowhere. But Gage didn't expect these people to be a group of teenage girls, or a group at all. So he didn't take the time for some dramatic reveal, instead he swatted away the black fog and just yelled at Yang and the others,

"GO!"

His voice resonated for each of the girls as they became alarmed from his tone, and Blake was quick to run and get Yang back onto her feet right as Gage looked towards Ruby and Weiss, raised his blade, which was a curved Kukri knife, up at an angle that looked like he was just pointing it at them. Then, the pieces of the blade and grip began to shift and move apart in his hands, until the weapon looked to have shifted into some knife-revolver hybrid.

He followed up with this 'greeting', by blasting the two other beowolves they were fighting in the head after he pulled the hammer back on his pistol, and shouted at them some more once he lowered the gun. "GET HER, AND LEAVE! I'LL LEAD THEM AWAY!" The only thing he got from them was a quick and nervous little nod before Blake brought Yang over to the rest of the team, and they began to run back into the forest.

"Wait-don't-he could die!"

Yet, as she looked back, Yang began to protest once she saw the man turn back to the Goliath with his revolver, aimed it up at it's massive body, and fire a single shot at it again which made the giant elephant stomp it's feet continuously with a seething rage that had been built up over a long time. By the time this happened though, RWBY had already dragged their last member into the treeline.

Only when they were gone did he get to work, and it felt like an entire different part of his mind took the wheel while Gage's subconscious was just there along for the ride. In what looked like quick flashes of consciousness, he witnessed himself as his body took one big leap towards the Goliath's leg, and he was able to grip it's flesh with his free hand.

When his revolver turned back into its knife form, he jammed it into the Grimm before he blinked twice and found himself clambering up onto it's back as the beast started to cry out and shake it's body violently as if it was a giant wet dog that was just trying to get rid of one pesky flea.

Then the inevitable happened, because soon after it's shake-out ended the Goliath did the last thing it could think of and began to stampede into the distant part of the forest that appeared to be populated with taller and more frayed-looking trees, hoping to knock off or kill the small offender by stomping into and past the pines.

Things were clearly gonna get bumpy for Gage, and he would've lost his footing pretty early on if he hadn't stabbed his knife once more into the Goliath's back to keep himself in place. "*pant* ...A GROUP OF GIRLS. IT HAD TO BE A GROUP OF GIRLS, HUH?!" Once he was able to find his balance again, albeit briefly, he made a mad dash towards the elephant's neck… not in an effort to kill it though, just to use the creature's blindspot to his advantage.

His goal was already complete since they were for sure far from Team RWBY now, and as he continuously slashed and shot the Goliath as he ran up it's back, he saw an opening to get off of this ride as the Grimm stopped completely and raised its body backwards so it could stand only on its hind legs. Gravity would do it's work then, but not before Gage was able to reach its neckline in time and went on to desperately sprint up the Goliath's head while it was still leveled.

As it raised upwards more and more he could only run up it's face to reach the one exit point he really had left in mind, which was the trunk now that it was the highest point he could get to. That was his endgame, and he even sheathed his weapon when he was at the halfway point to try and gain some extra speed with the movement of his arms. And when he finally reached the tip of the Goliath's trunk, he chose to take a leap of faith as he grunted heavily, and just hurled himself off of it right before the elongated snout was able to point straight up into the sky.

Gage could only hold his breath and remain dead silent in order to not throw up or scream his lungs out, and as he fell further down towards Remnant, he rolled his arms and kicked his legs momentarily… until his body just disappeared. His green aura shone for a second as he fell through the roaring air, and just like that… poof. He was gone. Nothing else could be seen or heard as the Goliath continued to stampede through Glenn's Forest, and it eventually went off towards the mountains until it could no longer be seen, and that was when everything went black for our so called 'hero'.

…

**Later…**

…

After about twenty minutes of different opinions being discussed about what to do, RWBY eventually went looking for the missing man as they were afraid he could become a victim of the Goliath's wrath. So with Zwei going and leading the rest of the group as he sniffed the ground for any sort of scent, the four girls followed with an immense sense of hopelessness overtaking them.

"You guys, Zwei isn't a bloodhound." Weiss argued, while the group were already beginning to follow the corgi into a deeper part of the forest. "There's no way he'd be able to track the guy's scent that well, even if we had something for him to catch it from..."

"Well we have to try, don't we?" Yang asked in return. At this point they were all walking over large logs and rocks just to get through the treeline… and soon enough, Zwei's ears perked up as he looked ahead into what appeared to be a circular clearing.

It didn't appear to be natural though, which Blake quickly noticed after she could see that there were turned over and knocked down trees that they had to walk over. And when they got closer to where sunlight could shine through the forest's canopy, Ruby pushed ahead past her team and nearly gasped as she moved a branch that was obscuring her vision, and let her eyes to adjust to the light.

"...So much for that, look!"

She then pointed towards the center of the trees, directly under the opened part of the canopy… and that was where Gage ended up falling. He didn't plan ahead for a happy landing unfortunately, so he just braced himself and hoped for the best, which ended with him crashing into the forest and being pinned to the ground by various knocked over trees that collapsed in the wake of his impact.

He had been pretty much buried by one of them with just his head showing while his left arm was outstretched towards the team,and his eyes remained closed. Things quickly got a lot more real upon seeing him like this, and the four girls were quick to rush over… except for Yang, who was trying to stop Ruby from getting too close.

Luckily Blake came over to stand in front of their young leader instead and she nodded for Yang to go ahead and take a look at him since Zwei quickly started to bark and scamper over to the body around the same time the rest of the group spotted him. The blonde girl didn't say anything, and reluctantly took the first step towards him as Weiss stopped and said something under her breath.

"Oh no…" Then surprisingly, she too followed Yang's lead and began to approach the man once she took out her scroll and tapped a few times on it's screen until what looked like a camera with a negative filter came up. "Any one of us could've jumped off of that thing and been fine, so how far do you think he fell? Unless it ended up throwing him with its trunk..." Blake asked this from behind her two teammates, and the heiress just looked up into the air briefly and back down at the dirt below Gage's body to see that there was a small crater beneath him.

"It's at least enough of a distance to leave a dent in the earth... and that's still pretty high up, thrown or not. " She answered, with a little sarcasm.

Soon after she and Yang both got close enough to him, their brawler was quick to try and lift the strewn about logs off of the man until all of his features could be seen by everyone. This caused his raised arm to fall against his side, and Zwei began to sniff his leg up until he got up to his right hand and lightly licked it as he whined a bit. "Zwei, NO. Don't do that!"

Yang was quick to try and push the corgi away from him, and at the same time this happened, Weiss took out her scroll and began to fiddle with its other functions. She tapped it's screen a few times until it's camera was pulled up and the heiress seemingly applied an inverted filter to it. This had an actual purpose to it, as it was now scanning his person for any signs that his aura still active, even if it was depleted at this moment.

Fortunately it was highlighting a small barrier of white light around his body, and it made the heiress sigh a bit as she removed the filter and lowered her scroll. "Well his aura is regenerating, so at least we know he's not dead…" She said this, and right away Yang looked back at her sister and Blake as she gave them both a thumbs up.

"Okay Ruby, you're fine to look-" Their younger leader was already a little peeved at this point, but couldn't blame Yang for being so protective.

So after she groaned about it for a second, Ruby changed Crescent Rose into it's rifle mode and nudged Blake. "Ugh... Blake, let's watch the perimeter. We should probably stay sharp for any Grimm after a crash that loud..." Then she stood in front of Gage's body and aimed her weapon back towards the treeline, while Blake went behind him and did the same with Gambol Shroud.

Their blonde was quick to just look him up and down and hum to herself as she crossed her arms and crouched down right in front of Gage, just staring at his messed up hair and blank face as she couldn't help but feel thankful that he hadn't ended up being a corpse. "Jeez, he's knocked out cold…"

Soon enough Yang scooched close enough to the point where she could hear his small breaths escape from inside him, and that was when she noticed that he wasn't that much older than her, Weiss, or Blake. Maybe just a year older by her guess, and it caused her to form at least one basic question about him, one that Weiss asked before she had the chance to form the words, "Where did he come from anyway? I mean, who else would be roaming around here just for kicks..."

"Aside from us-" Blake murmured.

"Grrr, w-we can find that out later! Because as of right now, this guy isn't looking too hot."

Yang then threw her arms down and slightly growled at the fact that she seemed to be the only one who was trying to help him right then, not counting Ruby since she had to be shielded at the moment. Blake and Weiss still had their own concerns of course, they just focused on something else like checking his vital signs and listening for any Grimm hiding in the trees that surrounded the five of them.

"That, we can agree on." Still though, the heiress kind of smirked without looking at the man on the floor, and it slowly made their brawler begin to visibly fume with her hair now glowing ever so slightly. Soon enough, the heiress saw this, and put raised her hand up nervously.

"Relax, I'll request a Medical Bulkhead to pick us up! It's about time we left this place behind anyways…" The heiress could be seen tapping away on her scroll as she did just that, and pretty soon Ruby glanced up through the trees with a new sense of concern now crossing her mind… as it looked like the sky was getting a little orange.

"Do you think we'll make it back to the city before the sun goes down?" She questioned the rest of her team, and with Weiss and Yang being occupied with their own self made tasks, Blake just shrugged with another short reply,

"Not if we have to lug him all the way there…"

As the two partners continued to talk about their new problem in private, Yang sighed and chose to just try and actually see if he was comatose or something close to it. But the only way she could think of to test him… was to just lean in close to Gage and shout as she lightly tapped the side of his head with her finger. "Hey, wake up-!"

And she quickly got a reaction that none of them had planned for, as that was all it took for their new friend to jolt back to consciousness. For Gage it was kind of soothing at first, as he opened his eyes and became entranced with the pretty face that seemed to be staring back at him… until the nerves in his left knee became infected with an overwhelming amount of pain that built up and spread throughout that entire limb.

That, with a mix of just being surprised by Yang's presence got a loud, airless gasp out of their now wide-eyed 'savior', who raised his head up quickly and got the blonde brawler to jump back as an ear piercing scream escaped from her lips.

"Hu… H-HUH-!" The two of them backed away from each other with Gage pressing his back against one of the logs, since her scream basically deafened him, and that was when his burst of adrenaline from the previous fight finally ran out. "RRRGH-Oh-my-FUCK! My leg!"

He clutched his left leg like he'd just either been shot in the knee, or he'd woken up with a charley horse that was conjured up by the god of darkness himself. Sure, it might've been a bit of an overreaction, but at least it got Team RWBY's attention too.

"AGH, GET, THIS-off of me!" Zwei was already barking by the time Gage saw that a heavy branch had rolled onto his shin/ankle area, and Yang huffed with frustration as she jumped in and lifted it off of him. However, Weiss crouched down next the blonde too and was able to cover his mouth in an effort to silence him. "Hey calm down, it's not like it's broken! ...I-Is it?" She asked him nervously.

Due to him still being muted by her hand, Gage darted his eyes to the side and started to wiggle his left foot slowly, which went unnoticed by the girl, until he looked back at Weiss and shook his head politely as a way to say no. That was when she released him, and continued to berate the guy in front of her teammates, "What were you thinking back there? You could've died!"

"I could ask the four of you the same thing, 'snowflake..."

"Whu-W-What did you just call me?!"

His reply was swift once he was able to take another breath in, and it made would've made Ruby let out a cheeky little giggle if she hadn't been so taken off guard by how Gage scared Yang, and how she didn't punch him in the face out of instinct. But as you could expect, the heiress still leaned down towards the man with her hands on her hips, and stammered to try and sound threatening.

"Don't, it's my fault this happened. Just another dumb blonde throwing herself at whatever stupid idea she comes up with next…" Before she could actually get her hands on the guy and ring his neck, Yang put a hand up and got in between the two. She looked down at him a little sullen-like before she turned away and rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.

He could tell that she was pretty hung up about what happened, even if he didn't know that she was the reason for the goliath's attack, and despite that Gage just tried to humor her with a painful smile as he started to bend his left knee a little, "Maybe... but did it at least look cool?-AUGH!"

Yang was surprised by his positivity and was about to smile as well, until an audible pop in his femur could be heard for a second as he grunted and switched legs so his right knee was closer to his chest while his left leg was laid flat out instead. It made both her and Ruby wince just because of the sound, and when it was clear that the bone still wasn't broken, Blake approached Gage from behind and leaned over him.

"Can you walk?"

"M-Might need a little help, but yeah…"

Her sharp amber eyes and straightforward tone made her come off as a bit eerie to him, and he couldn't help but tense up as her shadow seemingly loomed over his figure. Yet, after he answered with a little hesitation, she grinned and her voice raised to a higher octave, to where she even sounded cheerful… for a moment. "...Good. At least we can get back to the city a lot quicker now."

"You're headed there? Why?" Gage asked this in return to no one in particular with squinted eyes before Weiss re-approached him, and continued to just stare down at her scroll without much thought. "Our bullhead dropped us off there for our mission, so we need to find a way there if we're gonna get back to the academy…" That was when he started to pick up on some key words she was using, specifically the one at the end there.

"Wait. 'Mission', 'Academy' ...Are you guys from Beacon or something?"

"Yup!"

Ruby then exclaimed from behind the rest of her team, and got within the stranger's view as she now joined the group huddle that seemingly formed around him. She kind of put Gage off for a moment just by how cheerful her voice was compared to the rest of her team, and also because of her appearance, with the most obvious takeaway being that she was really young, but also that she didn't look scared or worried at all.

"...Alright-" Was all he could really say back to her. Now he finally had the whole picture of Team RWBY as each of them were now basically standing above him, and with a fifteen year-old girl among their ranks, anything they did felt like it was beyond criticism in his mind. It wasn't like he'd be any better If their roles were swapped anyway."-So you guys are trying to get back to Glenn, all the way from out here?"

"It's not ideal, but it's not the worst thing we've been through."

By the time Weiss shrugged with an answer the four girls unknowingly got into their team formation once Ruby got closer and stopped in front of him, and now it felt like if he made the wrong move he was going to be in for a world of hurt. But considering that both parties needed some kind of assistance, Gage figured that he'd better extend another olive branch, "If it makes you feel any better, I have a place there you guys can hunker down in. But the hard part is going to be getting through the grimm..."

"With just that little knife of yours, it could've been!" The heiress replied with a smirk.

Surprisingly, Gage snickered and tried not to laugh at the insult as he looked down at his sheathed weapon. (The actual sheath, of course) As this happened though, Ruby looked away for a moment and caught a glimpse of what looked to be a lever-action shotgun that had been covered up by one of the many branches that had fallen during his impact.

He didn't see it first, as he was too focused on talking to RWBY's older members since they kept the conversation going. His lost shotgun seemed to have landed a little far to the left of the crater his body made, and the rose was immediately glued to it. She nearly jogged over to it and pulled it out of the brush, only to hold it up and gasp as started to inspect Mistletoe like it was made of gold. "Whoa…!"

Gage remained clueless to her discovery however and was quick to get all serious again once he got a painful sounding chuckle in, questioning Weiss on her previous statement with a raised eyebrow. "Heh… And what do you mean by 'could've'?"

"Don't worry about it." Blake interrupted him with a blunt answer, and just as quickly as the girls presented themselves to the stranger, the stray glanced at her friends and nodded away from him, gesturing for them to group up together… in private.

Weiss complied right away while the two sisters were hesitant in following, but this time Yang was the one who chose to stick out instead of her younger sibling. Ruby still held Gage's shotgun in one hand and remained a little hidden from his view as Weiss scowled and crossed her arms again. "Something's telling me we're going to have a rough time with this extraction…" She basically growled.

Their faunus teammate shrugged again with barely any concern in her voice, "It's not like we have any other options—-" Right then Gage tried to lean up again, and cursed as another bone could be heard popping before he leaned his head back and covered his mouth as to not let anything loud escape from the depths of his lungs. Her and Yang were quick to face him when this happened, and all the girls fell silent after that… until Ruby just casually waved that off like it was nothing.

"We'll be fineee…"

Her partner and Blake groaned internally from this judgement, and as their leader started to brush one of her own shoulders nervously… the rose looked towards her older sister for guidance, as the blonde was still watching Gage closely. "...Yang?"

Small breaths escaped from him before he chose to say anything to the team, and after she collected her thoughts, Yang looked back at Blake, Weiss, and Ruby who continued to watch him with a mix of curiosity and caution. Lucky for them though, their blonde brawler still remained the most sociable of Team RWBY even in her restless state, and so she just nodded at her friends and humored the guy with a smirk as she stared down at him,

"Four deadly young ladies, and a hatless cowboy lying in the dirt… What could possibly go wrong?"

He continued to gaze at the four girls with confusion for the amount of time it took for a few random leaves to fall from the trees above the group of five and onto the grass below, before he finally snapped out of this random trance and realized that this blonde beauty was willing to return the favor of helping him out… and all he could do was awkwardly leave her hanging.

So Gage basically threw himself up off of the ground with a few extra gasps of air, and when he saw that neither Yang or Blake hadn't even moved a muscle to try and defend what could've been a surprise attack… he couldn't help but smile a bit as he grasped the blonde girl's outstretched hand and let her effortlessly pull him up onto his feet, "Probably a lot…"

His weight nearly made his injured knee buckle as soon as he was upright again, but Yang saw this and quickly turned her body so he could wrap an arm around the back of her neck and lean on her for support. Gage grimaced and gasped loud enough for everyone to hear, which was enough for Weiss to keep second guessing this decision.

"But, what if we don't make it there before dusk? The grimm thrive in the dark, remember…"

This time she actually looked him in the eye as she said this, and no one else could really provide her with an immediate solution or words of encouragement. Instead, all she got was a few extra barks from Zwei as he caught up with the group and lined up next to this stranger and Yang with his tongue sticking out.

The corgi surprised Gage for a moment, before he raised his head back up just in time to watch as Ruby walked towards him… and silently held his shotgun named Mistletoe out towards him with a wholesome twinkle in her silver eyes. His weapon's stock and trigger were presented to him without a second thought of caution, and so he lightly swung his arm over and clasped his weapon tightly as the rose let go. She then turned, took out Crescent Rose and stood beside her pup as Blake caved as well and chose to join up next to her partner without missing a beat.

With the others already going all in on this guy, the heiress felt like she had no other choice in the matter… and she didn't like being left out of things either, whether they were good or bad. But when she finally appeared to stop glaring at the guy, Gage tried to show off for her as he thrusted Mistletoe outwards, spun his hand backwards, and flip-cocked the shotgun. Showing that no matter what came next, he was ready to fight.

It was nothing that impressed her, but the gesture was enough to make Weiss just roll her eyes at him and turn around to face the woods in formation with Zwei, the rest of Team RWBY, and Gage... just as he finished his sentiment, and witnessed the fading light of the sun break through the forest once more. "Don't worry-"

"...I know a way."

* * *

**DatRtfantho Presents…**

**RWBY: Desertion (Remastered)**


	2. Start Walking

**Author's Note: **Hey all, i'm sorry that it took so long to get a second chapter out. Aside from the obvious stuff happening in the world right now, I forgot to mention that I'm also working on this story's still ongoing sequel whilst making this, since it's nearing the end of a big storyline. I'm sure that this will be given more attention once that's over, I simply just need to figure out a good schedule when working with both of these projects. But besides that… things are gonna be winding down a little from that extravagant first impression, that's for sure.

Still though, to the newer and returning readers, thanks for following this! I was kinda surprised at the numbers since it took me like five chapters for someone to follow the original story. That's pretty reassuring, so thanks y'all, and don't forget to recommend/share this with others, either! Anyways, to compensate for lost time I made sure to extend this update so we'd be a chapter ahead of schedule, but it'll most likely just be a lot of walking and talking this time around, so hopefully I won't bore you guys two chapters into this throwback. Now, let's get the introductions out of the way...

**Song: **Radioactive by Imagine Dragons Ft. Kendrick Lamar

…

_**Chapter 2 - Start Walking**_

After what felt like a lifetime of creeping through the forest surrounding the city, Team RWBY was led by Gage until they soon came out of the woods and found themselves on top of a tree covered hill that curved down into… what seemed like a swamp, or mud-filled bog with some buildings being seen in the distance. They weren't close, but they'd be able to make it there by sunset if they hurried enough.

With his arm still wrapped around Yang to keep himself standing, he slouched a little and smiled as the four girls around him started to appear a little stunned by the fact he was able to stay true to his word. He really did know a way back to Mountain Glenn,

"See… *pant* ...just like i said!" Then without warning he got his hand free from Yang, placed his fingers in his mouth, and let out a loud whistle that traveled far and wide. It's echo even came back to them as Blake resisted the urge to cover her cat ears, and Yang glanced at him oddly.

They all assumed he did this out of some weird celebration and waved it off as just that. So when their attention came back to the marshlands that lied ahead of them, Weiss walked over a bit and leaned towards Gage as she stared at the mud below with some personal concern… mainly because of the color she wore valiantly, "...Is there a cleaner way to get through that?"

She was quick to look down at the white heels she wore, and Blake did the same with her shoes once her ears stopped ringing… but Gage still tried to reassure them both since they didn't know his own boots had a bunch of holes in them, and he ended up nodding back down towards the base of the hill, where it looked like the start of small bridge was located. "Not right now. But don't worry, there's a small boardwalk we can use." He explained, with little response.

The heiress sighed before Ruby just picked up Zwei and started to head down as Yang and Gage did the same, until she and Blake followed slowly without any further protests. It was a dumb thing to complain about anyways, and they didn't have a lot of time to come up with a different route. "If I fall in that cesspool, I'm taking you down with me, 'scruffy'!" Weiss whined, trying to come up with a better name than the one Gage gave to her.

She and Blake soon moved past him and Yang to go meet up with Ruby down at the bridge, with the five teens and their dog now moving down that hill and through a flower covered field that ironically resided next to the swamp. It was so dark and disgusting to them, that some of Team RWBY honestly thought that it was some old tar pit that had been forgotten over time.

But it was merely an obstacle that was preventing them from getting back home, and with no other choice, the group of five began to cross the bog with that small, flimsy bridge being the one thing protecting them from a night of sleeping in muddy clothing. It was barely wide enough to stand on and was bent in zigzagged lines to avoid various objects sticking out of the dark water, like various dead trees, a car, and even an old rusted traffic light.

Because of it's small size though, Yang had to let go of Gage and let him limp behind her do they both wouldn't fall in, while Blake started to cross without a care in the world, and Weiss basically needed Ruby to hold her hand to help her across, even though Zwei was already being held under their young leader's other arm. Soon enough they all became leveled, and thus began their slow saunter across the marshland.

However, when they got halfway almost in complete silence… Gage got the courage to try and present his first question to the girls, as they had done most of the talking up to this point in time. He didn't really know how to phrase it elegantly either, so he pretty much just shot it out of his mouth point blank at the team, "So… who are you guys?"

"We're Team RWBY."

...Ruby made her reply sound really nonchalant, like some type of casual scoff could've come before it. The rest of the team continued on like it was nothing too, and Gage even felt like he was supposed to know who they were or something. He then ended up squinting at the young rose before he stopped walking for a second and scratched the back of his head, feeling confused, "Alright, but… do you have like actual names, or is that it?"

It was starting to become clear that these girls were clearly out of it, especially after the last few busy weeks of picking up the pieces after the Vale Breach, and it took a minute before all of them turned to face their new friend like he'd just shot a bullet into the air. Well… everyone, except for Blake of course. She continued walking on as Yang chose to introduce herself first with an odd stutter,

"Oh-uh, I'm Yang! Y-Yang Xiao Long..."

Her face then strangely became slightly more red than her teammates in their shared embarrassment, until the brawler's partner causally raised her hand and started to tilt her body while she continued to try and balance her body on the plank. At the same time though, Gage noticed that some sunlight reflected off of her eyes unlike everyone else's, and he squinted at her strangely.

"Blake Belladonna-" However, right after she got her own name out, Gage nodded his head and looked past the hidden faunus so he could stare ahead and call out to Weiss before she had the chance to speak, as it would turn out that she didn't even need to introduce herself.

"And you're Weiss Schnee, right?" He asked her suddenly. This got an actual scoff to come from her as a response, and she didn't say anything further to him. The heiress forgot how much she hated being recognized, but Ruby noticed this and tried to segway Gage's attention onto herself instead. "Yup, and I'm Ruby Rose-A.K.A., _their fearless leader!_"

He liked her enthusiasm to say the least, and as they continued to shimmie behind one another inch by inch across the boardwalk, Gage mentally paused as he put together some of the connections the girls had between each other (the ones we mostly know of) like letters in their names, the somehow matching colors, and last but not least their actual team name, 'Team RWBY'.

That simple thing was what made him kind of chuckle to himself, "That's convenient-AGH!" Only for the world to fuck with him again, as he took a step on a weaker part of the plank and nearly stepped right through it… if Yang hadn't caught him last second, that is. She was quick to spin around and grab his wrist as he leaned back once he lost his balance, and now the two of them looked like they had stopped halfway through some weird dysfunctional type of tango.

And despite this, the blonde beauty still kept the conversation going. "...And you are?"

She even left him in that position for a few more seconds until she finally chose to yield and giggle for a second, as he was finally able to breathe and replied once he knew that she was just yanking his chain instead of it being some weird type of intimidation tactic that could be used to get the truth out of him in case he lied. Still though… as Yang laughed at how scared he looked at the time, he couldn't help but become relaxed by her warm smile and laid back demeanor.

"G… Gaigus Sim, but you can call me Gage. Whichever you think fits-" He answered carefully just in case, and started to walk again once she turned around and did the same while trying to give her best guess about what could easily explain his presence in the local area, "So, 'Gage'… Are you a huntsman?"

"*pant* ...Far from it-"

"Then what are you doing out here?"

He paused after that for what felt like a long time in his head, as he really tried to come up with some other excuse… but ended up not giving one at all. He didn't want to scare any of these girls off anyway, so after tilting his head and running a hand through his hair quickly, Gage continued to look down at the ground and sighed. "...It's a long story."

Thankfully Yang knew that was pretty much a code for 'don't ask', so she instead hummed for a moment until she thought of something less personal to ask him about. Good thing he was actually okay with being chatted up a bit, especially when it was coming from someone like her. "Well, then how long have you been here?" She asked as a substitute.

That was something he was okay with… the only problem was that he didn't really know the answer himself, and he even stopped walking along the boardwalk again as he tried to piece it all together. Eventually he caved once he couldn't think of a reference point, and instead asked Team RWBY something in return.

"That depends. Who's hosting the Vytal Festival this year?"

"In five months, Vale... It's the first year in its rotation." Ruby told him this right as she finished crossing the bog's elongated plank, and hopped down into a wet patch of moss and tall grass that stretched out into the normal wilderness that was just ahead of the group of five.

Not that much later, the rest of their group reached the end of the bog and followed the red rose into the marshlands with no other issues. Even Weiss let out a sigh of relief as her heels kind of sunk into the wet ground, but she simply thought it was better than having both of her shoes get drowned in mud and all other kinds of crap. Either way, the land got drier with each step they took and soon their trek returned to normal.

For the girls it seemed kinda weird how the swamp was like an obstacle in the middle of the forest, but at least the nearby destroyed buildings sticking above the trees let the girls know that they were getting closer. Gage already knew this though, so he continued to piece together his own timeline in his head until he just threw it out there for them in bulk. "Last time I checked, the first festival in Atlas's rotation just ended… So about that long."

To Team RWBY, that statement was almost equivalent to a record being scratched. He didn't think this would be the day he'd make four girls turn their heads in his direction simultaneously, but that seemed to do the trick. Predictably, they remained stunned (except for Ruby, who paused for a second to put Zwei back on the ground) as Gage stopped too and didn't even try to play it off like it was nothing.

"That's… almost two years!"

Blake blurted this out with a shocked expression that matched all of her teammates collectively, and the only thing their 'new friend' could do was puff one of his cheeks up, look away and nod silently while the rest of the girls pretty much stared at him like he was some type of escaped mental patient. However, that was when Weiss broke the silence after making a connection that got her riled up real good...

"Wait a second, if you were here all that time, then where were you during the breach three weeks ago?!" She basically screeched at him just then, but instead of instinctively covering his ears like you would after hearing a fork scrape against a plate, Gage put a hand up in case she decided to randomly rush him, and he tried to keep things… vague. "...I've been away from here since the winter after some people came here, and almost killed me! They would've if it wasn't for my semblance, but… wait, there was a breach?!"

His shock and confusion seemed to be genuine once he processed what had been said, but Yang was quick to calm him down and keep him from acting out of turn like she was known to do, at least with Ruby. The blonde just put both of her hands out, and tried her best to subtly explain the event in one breath. Like it was any other day,

"It was handled by us, the Atlesian Military, and a few other Beacon teams. Lasted a few hours at most-"

"Those people… were they with the White Fang?" Blake asked him, only for Gage to stop and slowly turn towards her. His concern for the kingdom was suddenly outmatched by the uneasiness that came from that question, and it brought his mood down completely. The guy took a second to answer, before his voice went all soft, "...Looked like it, but there was a human with them too. So I figured they were just bandits, and ran. Been gone ever since..."

The mention of... _them_, changed him, and at the same time it seemed like the rest of his body became tense. Yang got a glimpse at one of his hands as it slowly crumpled into a weak fist, while Ruby and Weiss looked at Blake dreadfully. Team RWBY knew what Gage was talking about, and it only reinforced their theory that the 'failed' attack on Vale had been planned a long time ago.

It was a good thing they stopped it before the Grimm invasion got out of hand, but ever since Beacon's victory, things have gotten oddly silent. It had been awhile since they've heard anything from the cult or whoever worked alongside Roman Torchwick, so it felt like any new info could help them in the long run… too bad the only thing Gage had to give was stuff from the past.

And predictably, Weiss didn't choose to ease up on the guy despite him being clearly unsettled after talking about his bad experience. "You could've reported it-"

She made him feel worse, and thankfully Ruby came to the rescue after she saw how he was beginning to basically shut down in front of them. Their small leader came over and zipped next to Weiss so quickly that the ice queen nearly tumbled onto the ground in front of their new friend, until she was caught by her cape wearing partner. "H-Hey!"

The girl in red grumbled to herself, and lifted Weiss up only for her to cross her arms afterwards. Then Ruby walked ahead of the heiress so she could try and look up at Gage with confidence gleaming from her silver eyes as she tried to bring him back up from whatever pit his mind pushed him down into. It looked a little funny too, considering the guy was almost nine inches taller than her,

"Well, you don't have to worry! We cleared most of the city out already, so unless some of the local wildlife gets cranky, there shouldn't be anything to worry about. Especially with the four of us here-!"

She was doing a good enough job at first, but as Blake and Weiss both turned over and started to approach the tall grass… a small caw was heard, followed by a symphony of calls that would've come from your average creepy black bird. Then as the noises erupted into an anthem, a murder of crows and buzzards appeared, ascending from the shrubbery, tall grass and trees before they almost created what looked like cyclone around the five teens. The birds acted like they were bats in a sense, and their presence made Ruby gasp and almost roll up into a ball.

The rose was close to hugging herself until she looked up in awe and saw the black tornado flying above her, right as Blake, Yang, and Gage did the same. He smiled at it like it was common while each of the girls went on to watch this scene with amazement… well, everyone except for Weiss. She instead ducked and put her hands over her head so she wouldn't ironically get shit on.

"Speaking of the wildlife…" Gage smirked.

Halfway through the bird's cycle though, Yang slowly glanced over at her little sister and couldn't stop smiling for some reason. Maybe the others wouldn't know, but in that moment, she was happy that Ruby had the nerve to approach this guy and help him keep his cool. It was a far cry from how she was during their first days at Beacon Academy, that was for sure. Thankfully she was able to hide her plight as the birds flew away…

...And when they took off back towards Mountain Glenn's outskirts, Gage looked ahead and saw that a path had been cleared up ahead. It went straight into the next collection of trees, and from how he recognized the land, he knew that It was exactly where they needed to go. So he was quick to look back at the girls and their dog, and gesture for them to keep moving.

"...C'mon, the hard part is almost over."

…

Into the tall trees they went, and despite already getting a bunch of information out of the guy, Yang continued to question him innocently when in reality she was trying to see how grounded he really was. The rest of Team RWBY slowed their walking pace as well, so the brawler and the stranger were further ahead than the rest of them as everyone continued on towards the abandoned city… and seeing them together caused some very hasty ideas to form inside Ruby's head.

"So… where are you from, anyway?"

"All over, honestly." Gage muttered to Yang, still remaining toe to toe with the blonde girl as they talked, "Let's see… I lived in Mistral until I was thirteen, came here for a vacation one time, and I lived in Atlas for a while after that. Then I ended up here by myself, if you want to count this as 'living'." He replied at the end with visible air quotes being made with his fingers, and lowered his hands as he sighed and stared at the surrounding forest tiredly.

"...I was supposed to move here when I was training to go to Sanctum Academy, but thankfully Mountain Glenn collapsed before that could happen."

"So you _were_ gonna be a huntsman!" Ruby said this gleefully after he mentioned Sanctum, only for their new friend to glance back at the young leader with a smug look on his face. However, after everything that was just said, Weiss became confused after she remembered that he had mentioned her own kingdom too,

"Wait, you _lived_ in Atlas? …You don't mean Mantle, do you?" The heiress didn't want to be mean, but Gage just didn't seem like your average Atlesian teenager. Still though, he remained adamant in that fact… the only difference was that he didn't see the two locations as different places. "It's all the same to me… Me and my dad lived on the bottom and went to the top for work, yada yada. Atlas just sounds cooler." He said nonchalantly.

"Well, that explains how you knew about me..." Weiss concluded, mostly to herself.

"That, and your music..." Gage then made Weiss blush for a moment, more from embarrassment than anything else, until he chose to go on about what he remembered during his early days. "Still though, living there wasn't as bad as everyone says it is. Either that, or it was just hidden very well... I even had a faunus friend that wasn't messed with a lot. Never saw anything like that to be honest."

He ended with a softer tone after recounting that time in his life, and after he walked out in front of Team RWBY while doing so… he turned back over towards Blake and came up with an odd question to ask her. Although, he wasn't expecting to be cut off without warning before he could finish, "That reminds me… Hey Blake, why the bow-?"

Because as Gage stuck out from the rest of their group… a Beowulf suddenly came out of nowhere, and pounced on him from the treeline to the right while he was distracted. Three more wolves from the same pack came out with it after he was brought down, and Team RWBY flipped on a dime to try and fight back. The other beowolves chose to attack the girls while one of their targets were already being mauled, and Ruby was quick to give her team some callouts as she took Crescent Rose out and flipped it as it shifted into it's scythe form,

"ICE-FLOWER! BUMBLEBEE!" She dashed forwards after that with her semblance and slashed one of the grimm to knock it back, with her stopping as Weiss tagged in without a word. The heiress flew forward with Myrtenaster and struck the wolf, stopping in a crouched position as it was knocked back again. Then after she got on one knee, Ruby ran up Weiss's back and jumped over to the creature before she slashed it in half with her scythe. Meanwhile, Blake and Yang started off slow during this encounter as the third beowulf scampered over to try and block them from helping Gage, so they had to deal with that first to keep him from being swarmed.

Their new friend was quick to try and counter the surprise attack too, and as he landed on his back with the first wolf on top of him… he let go of his lever-action shotgun, which was named _Mistletoe,_ and was able to push the creature's head back by grabbing it's neckline. At the same time it growled like some type of hellhound before it sunk one of its claws into his right shoulder and started to scrape down it's arm, until it swiped into the bandana that was wrapped around Gage's right bicep.

He saw some of the rag's fabric tear off clear as day, and that instantly got him to react by shouting in the creature's face at the top of his lungs, "DON"T FUCKING TOUCH THAT!" The wolf roared back as a reply and slashed at his chest with his other claw… but before it could do any more damage, he brought the creature's head closer and suddenly killed it without warning.

As the first beowulf's head was pulled close, and it's jaw opened to reveal rows of shiny teeth… Gage made a fist with his free hand and bent his wrist down as he went to punch the roof of the grimm's mouth. Then two blades randomly went through the Beowulf's skull and out the back of his head, silencing it abruptly! This occured right as Blake shot the third wolf twice, which allowed her partner to punch a hole in it's head with Ember Celica as a follow up.

It was reduced to a cloud of black dust immediately, and the two girls happened to kill it just in time to see Gage push the first and now dead beowulf off of himself. He somehow managed to survive the attack without any help, and it surprised them both. "...W-Wait, what the-?" Yang then looked at his right arm, and saw something she didn't notice before.

On top of his right wrist was a small metal rectangular box, and there were two blades now coming from the front of it, jutting out over the knuckles of his right hand. It even looked similar to the claws that belonged to Miltia Malachite, the red Malachite twin Yang fought against in Junior's Nightclub a while ago. The only difference was that his blades were shorter and more jagged-looking than hers.

She quickly assumed it was a weird more compact version of a bladed gauntlet and calmed down for a moment once she saw that he was safe… but, that didn't last long, as the fourth and final beowulf came trampling over towards Gage. The last creature was nearly on top of him before it was intercepted as Zwei somehow pushed the wolf to the floor by headbutting it's stomach, and after the corgi backed off, the wolf was shot twice by Blake, now injured but still alive.

It crawled away on its back despite the damage and was already trying to stand up again. Gage watched this whilst laying next to the thing, and he turned towards the team just as Yang kicked Mistletoe back to him. His shotgun slid across the grass until he grabbed onto it, stood up, and aimed it down range at the Beowulf as the brawler used her gauntlets to launch herself ahead of everyone else.

She blasted the grimm with this attack and sent it crashing into a distant tree, but right as Yang was about to move up and finish it off, Gage called out to her. "Don't. He's MINE!" Then he looked down at Mistletoe and somehow pulled it's wood-grain stock out further. It didn't even look like it could extend, but when this happened, both sides of his shotgun's barrel seemingly popped out and curved towards the weapon's muzzle, mimicking the limbs of a crossbow in a sense.

Yang stayed put while Ruby watched this weapon's transformation, and they both were surprised as they watched the guy cock Mistletoe's lever back and forth before a bolt was fired at the final Beowulf. The weapon's parts had barely finished shifting together by then, but he was still on target and ended up pinning the creature to the tree it crashed into, as the crossbow bolt went straight through its eye and out the back of it's head. A small yelp was all that came from the Grimm before it was reduced to another cloud of black ashes a second later, thus allowing everyone there to finally breathe again.

Everyone's first instinct was to stare at the stranger in their midst, since he was the one who got attacked initially, and Yang was the first person to check up on him since she was the closest. "Hey, are you alright?!" She asked as he lowered his... 'shot-bow'.

"*exhale* Yeah…" Gage instantly looked down at himself to see the damage, only to notice that he'd gotten a few scrapes at best. His clothes had been torn pretty good though, and in the end he just felt annoyed by the entire encounter. "...And I think that was the same pack that came to help out the Goliath from earlier. Must've been following you guys ever since then..." He also felt bad about being taken down so easily, but kept that to himself.

"...They tracked us that easily?" Weiss asked him this in return, only for Blake to answer instead. She did this while Gage chose to walk over to retrieve the crossbow bolt he just fired, "It makes sense, since there aren't exactly a lot of people around here anymore. Not to mention that the Grimm here are older, and definitely smarter than the ones in the Emerald Forest..." But in reality, the stray did this to keep the subject away from the bow on her head, as she indeed caught what Gage said seconds up until he was pounced on.

For now though, it seemed like she was safe. Because as Gage stopped in front of the tree the now disintegrated Beowulf had been pinned against, he nodded in agreement and pulled his bolt out of the tree trunk with one tug. Staying quiet the whole time as he pressed a button on the nock of the crossbow bolt, and watched as the projectile shrunk down to the size of a 9mm bullet.

"We're safe now though, so we should probably-"

However as he turned back to the four girls and was about to suggest that they kept moving, they all heard something move towards the same treeline that the pack of grimm came from. There was a faint breath along with the sound of a few twigs snapping, and within seconds everyone had their weapons pointed in that direction. Zwei's growls could be heard as well, and right when they were all expecting an Ursa to come waltzing out of the woods…

...That sense of danger deflated rather quickly, as Gage's horse suddenly poked it's head out from behind the trees. The four girls were confused by the sudden appearance, tilting their heads with Zwei doing the same as they thought that some weird looking, long-faced grimm with a mane was about to come at them. "Beanie!" Gage called to the brown mustang and lowered Mistletoe again the second he spotted her.

The horse let out an audible huff and began to lightly trot over to her rider before he rushed over, patting the side of her neck as she lowered her head and allowed him to brush the side of her face as well. Team RWBY still needed a moment to process what just happened, and soon Ruby merrily put both of her hands under her cheeks after she put Crescent Rose away.

"YOU HAVE A HORSE?!"

Her eyes had an innocent sparkle that shined as she forced herself to not run over to Green Bean, and at the same time Weiss leaned over towards Yang while they both continued to stare at the man and his 'steed'. "That's… the last thing i was expecting." The heiress whispered.

"...'Hatless Cowboy', like i said!~" Yang cooed in a little sing-song voice as she watched Gage from afar, and she quickly had to look away when he turned back towards the Team. The blonde made Blake chuckle a bit before he could say anything though, and the feline faunus kept smiling anyway. "You guys are the first people she's ever seen up close besides myself, so try and be a little careful…" He told them all in a gentle tone.

Green Bean shifted her head over so that she could have one of her eyes on the group of girls and their dog, and she again let out a second huff from her nostrils, sounding a little more stressed than last time. Ruby was still the closest to Beanie out of everyone aside from Gage, and when things got quiet again… he got an idea and beckoned for the rose to come closer.

He then looked over towards one of the pouches attached to his horse's saddle and began to rifle through it as Ruby basically tip-toed her way over to the mustang, while Yang crouched down next to Zwei and put a hand on the back of his neck so he couldn't race over and scare the horse out of nowhere.

Then their new friend took an oatcake out of Beanie's saddle pouch and gave Ruby some clear directions as he handed the treat to her, since saying no to her just felt like it would've been a cardinal sin. "Here, let her eat this out of your hand-but watch your fingers!" He drew attention to the rose by doing this, and with the piece of food now in her hand, Beanie became focused on her hands pretty quickly.

The mustang had turned her snout towards the girl in red entirely when she slowly presented the small cake, and Beanie went to eat it out of her hand like without a care in the world. She didn't have any problem with the girl's presence, and so Ruby used that as an opportunity to brush her hand against the horse's neck like Gage had done. Another breath escaped from the horse's nostrils, and the young leader giggled a bit afterwards.

Still though, Yang went over to her little sister just in case, as she also wanted to clarify something with Gage, "...Uh, what'd you just call her?" The blonde's question made him rub the back of his head sheepishly, now feeling self-conscious about his name choice. "Her name's Green Bean, but i call her Beanie. I know it sounds stupid..." But, then she subverted his expectations with a small laugh of her own,

"Hehe… it's kinda cute, actually." Yang replied.

Her words led him to stop his worrying, and he was able to catch the blonde staring at him out of the corner of his eye, trying to anticipate his reaction… until Weiss came over and tore that down due to more pressing matters. That, and she didn't want Yang and Ruby to get carried away with their friendliness. "-I'm not trying to _RUIN_ this tiny petting zoo, but the sun's still getting lower by the minute, and i'd rather not sleep in the stomach of an Ursa tonight!"

"...Weiss." Blake interrupted the heiress, and despite thinking the same thing, she couldn't help but smirk back at her icy-haired friend as she pointed out her hypocrisy in her typical nonchalant yet sassy manner. "You talk to their dog like it's a baby half of the time-"

"B-BE QUIET! I know that your concerns are the same as mine!" Weiss still screeched at the feline faunus like a harpy however, and her face went red as Zwei also looked over at her with his beady little eyes. Soon he began to bark at her, thanks to how high pitched her voice became, and Gage promptly tried to bring things down to a more mellow state.

"Hey, hey, relax! We'll be back at Mountain Glenn within the hour… just trust me, I know what i'm doing."

"...Do you?" The heiress growled.

Thankfully because it's been… Well, almost two years since he's had to deal with someone this snarky, Gage was able to keep his cool and wordlessly asked Weiss to come with him for a second. He waved for her to come over as he turned his body towards the trees where the final beowulf had been killed, and they both went through the brush while the rest of Team RWBY looked on.

Turns out that the treeline wasn't as dense as it looked, and even though it appeared to contain another sea of trees, they both only took around twenty-five steps before they both walked out the other side a minute later, finding themselves at the edge of a cliff that overlooked a small ravine. There was another forest on the other side, with what looked like an old highway located next to it, and in the distance, you could even see Mountain Glenn with It's tallest buildings poking out at them.

However, Weiss was half expecting Gage to just throw her into the gorge up until the city came into view, and that was when he looked to the left of their location and pointed towards the highway… which went right over the chasm below them, acting like a giant double-laned bridge that connected both sides. This was highlighted by the wanderer, who pointed right at the concrete overpass.

"Look, that freeway is a straight-shot to the city, so we just have to get down to it and walk our way there. It's better than nothing, right?"

More walking wasn't a solution she had in mind, though being able to see Mountain Glenn now did reassure her a little bit. Either way it didn't stop her from giving the guy the cold shoulder, and he didn't even get so much as a 'sorry about that' from the heiress as she sighed, rolled her eyes and walked away.

"*sigh* ...Let's just cross over before something else tries to kill you."

Gage had already lowered his expectations so there wasn't any damage done to the modicum of his ego that remained, if you could even get something like that out of being a young hermit, and he was quick to follow after her back over to Team RWBY and Beanie.

Immediately she turned to the group of trees to their left after returning, with the bridge being in that direction, and she called for Blake to take point with her so she could calm down. The stray of course followed just to make sure that Weiss wouldn't walk straight into any more danger. As for Gage, he didn't linger on the ice queen's rudeness for long, because upon his return he found Ruby sitting on top of Beanie's saddle with a poker face ever present.

They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment, and after he realized that the team leader was too short to climb up onto the horse by herself… he glanced over at Yang, who grinned back at him as she started to follow after Weiss and Blake. Beanie had miraculously chosen neither to freak out nor knock Ruby off while he was gone, and once he let those concerns fade away, Gage simply smiled at the girl in red before he grabbed onto his horse's reins and led them both towards the highway...

…

**Later…**

…

Just like the stranger pointed out, they were able to walk out of the forest, climb over the barrier that outlined the highway, and go across the bridge that went over the ravine below. After that it was a straight-shot towards Mountain Glenn, which could still be seen from afar, just like he had promised… only he didn't mention that they had to walk another mile or two to get there. They were a group of six now when normally Gage and Beanie could just ride to the city like it was a race-track, so of course he had to slow down so as to not leave the girls behind.

The grimm infested forest was replaced with a hot, and barren concrete freeway as they were walking down the large empty path to the right of the lane divider while the left was packed with cars that had been destroyed and covered in rust a long time ago. A constant reminder of what happened to the people that were trying to escape Glenn during its collapse, but none of the teens chose to let it affect them.

Eventually they went under a stilted overpass and the tallest buildings within the fallen metropolis looked to be getting closer with every minute that followed, but at the same time, the sun was beginning to set over the Kingdom of Vale. It was clear that they were going to beat it though, and the stress disappeared from the group as they soon reached an off-ramp that would let them off near the city's center… exactly where their new friend wanted them to go.

Ruby had gotten off of Green Bean so the guy with the injured leg could ride his own horse, and the four girls and their dog were on either side of him as they finally got onto a street. They were following him of course, but as their surroundings became more closed off, Team RWBY became pretty on edge… Well, everyone except for Yang.

She had started shuffling her feet a while back on the highway, but at this point it almost looked like she was swaying with each step. It was as if all of the energy from meeting Gage was starting to wear off, and that same grogginess the blonde felt before their goliath encounter came back and hit her like a truck. Thankfully Blake noticed Yang's silence, and realized how exhausted she looked...

"...Yang, are you feeling tired again?"

"Yeah… guess it just snuck up on me." Yang replied as she wiped one of her eyes. Ruby and Weiss both stopped to take a glance at their teammate right in time to notice the brawler's bloodshot eyes, and the heiress crossed her arms in another classic 'i told you so' pose. "See? I knew we should've brought some of those coffee MREs-"

"But they taste so disgusting!" Ruby whined and partially covered her mouth upon hearing this, meanwhile Gage stopped Beanine and turned around to face the girls as he noticed Yang's zombie-like demeanor and offered the only solution he could think of, "I _can_ fit a passenger up here, but it's your choice." The blonde wanted to be off her feet more than anything, and after a brief hesitation, she threw all caution to the wind as she yawned and stretched her arms over her head.

"*yawn* ...That'd be mighty kind of you, _pardner!_" She mocked him in her own version of a 'southern belle' type of accent before Gage rolled his eyes, turned his body, and held his hand out to her. Then after she took a hold of him, he pulled her up onto his horse, only for her to make him feel cautious as she sat right behind him."Just don't get any funny ideas..."

Though, he ended up just chuckling when Yang wrapped her arms around his stomach tightly to stay balanced. Because for some reason it felt like she was trying to snap his back in half, and he called her out on it. "...I'd say the same thing, on account of how hard you're squeezing me." She had failed to notice her own strength as she was in fear of falling off the horse, and the brawler relaxed her grip immediately.

Her tiredness kept her from exclaiming or straight up punching him out of embarrassment, and instead Yang chose to hide her now rosy cheeks by hanging her head down low without another word. Hearing Weiss scoff again in the background helped her drop it a whole quicker, and soon they were back on track again. Gage kept his eyes on the road, Yang basically powered down, and Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Zwei followed alongside Green Bean as they headed further back into Mountain Glenn.

"So, what were you guys doing before the breach?" Gage asked once things got quiet.

It was an easy question, and Ruby answered truthfully… but when it was probably a bad idea to do so. "Oh! We were here actually, on a mission with one of our… professors..." No one else knew that much about their escapades against Roman Torchwick and the White fang, except for Sun and Neptune. Even then they probably didn't care too much, but the two girls _they_ were interested in couldn't help but stare at their team leader like she had just killed someone.

Weiss and Blake's eyes were wide open at this point, and the cat faunus joined the heiress in her arm-crossing. This reaction made the young rose stutter with the rest of her sentence, and it took her a second to understand why her two teammates looked like they were about to run over and cover her mouth. "...U-UM-a-and then we got called back to Vale once it happened! Yeah, a bulkhead picked us up and everything! E-Ehehe..."

She got a weird one-eyed glance from Gage after the sudden shift in tone, but he quickly turned back to face the road as Beanie's hooves clacked against the blacktop, and he managed to still stay on topic. "Did you guys ever find out what caused it?" Thankfully Blake took over before Ruby could say anything else. The stray remained truthful too, without mentioning how involved they had really been with stopping the breach.

"Yeah… this criminal Roman Torchwick was responsible for it. He used the old train tunnels under here for it actually, and opened them up so the Grimm could invade through the other side of Vale's walls."

"...Did he even have a reason for it?" He asked in return while Ruby began to hang back a bit, just looking down at the street and staying silent as Weiss picked up where Blake left off. "No. Not one that's been made public at least." The stranger acknowledged her with a small nod, yet couldn't help but feel guilty about what their ice queen said an hour ago.

"Hmph. Now I see why you were pissed at me earlier…" Gage's voice became colder as he kept looking ahead, but at the same time, the team noticed how much his posture crumbled after he said that. It somehow caused Weiss to feel kind of bad for shaming him before, and she suddenly tried to brush it off like it was nothing. "...I-It doesn't matter now anyway, he got locked up after the dust settled..." Y'know, in that typical tsundere fashion.

"Huh... then maybe I can finally come back here, if he was in charge of the same group who attacked me."

"...Do you really want to?" Blake questioned him upfront, like it was still a crazy idea. Of course he wanted to say something along the lines of 'it's better than out there', or a similar statement, but he feared that the girls would ask why he wouldn't want to live inside the Kingdom of Vale. So he didn't reply, and shrugged his shoulders.

It may have felt awkward after that, but it didn't stop the group from following him for the next few blocks. They passed building after building that the team recognized, and like before it made them feel a little uneasy… because this wasn't the side of the city they recognized from their current mission, it was the section that they cleared out with Dr. Oobleck preceding the breach. No Grimm were encountered though and it made them feel better about their actions that day… the only thing that made them worry, was when Ruby felt the need to stop at a seemingly random intersection.

She was visibly nervous, and when she turned to the lane to the right… The rose saw the hole that she'd fallen through before Torchwick and The White Fang captured her. Ruby froze and stayed speechless, wondering if it was a good idea to warn Gage that the ground around them might be unstable, but Weiss came and grabbed her hand so their pace wouldn't be slowed. The scenery became newer from that point on as they saw some of the taller structures the city had to offer.

Everything around them was at least five stories high, and as an orange hue was setting across Mountain Glenn… Gage felt something squishy pressed against his back as Yang had unknowingly began to lean against him in her sleepy stupor. It took him a second to figure out, and he let out his own sigh as she stirred and opened her eyes slightly. "Are we almost there…?" She asked him in a hushed tone.

"It's around the corner. I'm just letting Beanie take a victory lap at this point." He leaned up to brush the side of Green Bean's head after that, and the horse released a cute little snort as she walked on. That happy demeanor didn't last with the mustang for long though, as a few moments later the horse suddenly came to a stop and began to breathe rapidly.

Right away Gage was concerned for her, and just when he was about to ask what was wrong, the horse looked down towards the ground and stepped back and forth with her hooves. Like the pavement became scorching hot out of nowhere… but when he tried to see what the problem was, he glanced down right as a large crack in the pavement formed.

Weiss, Ruby, and Blake all jumped back within seconds while the horse let out a high pitched neigh, letting everyone know that there was something wrong immediately while Gage eyed the blacktop and woke Yang up from her peaceful ride. Then, right when it felt like the street was about to give way… something came up from below instead.

The exact opposite occurred as another Beowulf burst out from below the street! A loud roar came from it too as it launched itself up through the pavement with its claws out and teeth on full display, but right when it was about to latch onto Beanie's flesh, her rider countered it swiftly.

He wasn't going to let this surprise attack happen so when Gage saw the creature pop out of the ground, he drew on the thing in an instant. Taking his kukri knife (named _Javix_) out of the sheath on his right hip with his left hand, he let it shift into its revolver mode as he brought it up, and he was able to fan a shot out when the Beowulf's head became leveled with his weapon's muzzle. Yang may have actually been right about the cowboy thing, as the dark creature fell to the ground without any other movements coming from it afterwards.

The bullet went clean through it's forehead and killed it instantly… but, that still didn't bring an end to their problem. It was a jumpscare for everyone in their group, and with all of their fright mixed in with the gunshot that came from Javix, it was like every Creature of Grimm in the area could taste some new blood in the water.

...A dinner bell was rung basically, and as everyone watched this dead wolf disintegrate into a cloud of black ashes, what sounded like a symphony of howls and other dark calls erupted across the city. Gage instantly turned towards Team RWBY after he took a breath and sheathed Javix, to say the one thing they were all thinking,

"SHIT-THEY'RE COMING! WE'VE GOT TO GO, NOW!" They didn't have to be told twice.

Yang continued to hold onto him as Beanie reared, going up on her back legs before she brought herself down and charged ahead down the street with the rest of the girls following close behind. They tore down that road and stopped as they reached another intersection, and Ruby and Blake looked to the left just to see that side of the road obscured by pieces of a previously destroyed building. Ruby was able to correct her teammates as she watched Gage turn his horse the other way, "T-To the right-THE RIGHT!" The rose shouted.

Black claws and outlines could be seen scrambling up from beneath the rubble just as they turned in the other direction, and the team struggled to keep up with Green Bean. Ruby had to tug her partner back from the blocked street and pick Zwei up at the same time they started this mad dash, and they could all still fall behind if they didn't use her semblance. She even took a second to look ahead and spot a standout between each of the highrise-type buildings that were ahead, only to impatiently groan and ask for a hint.

"Grrrgh! Gage, which one is it?!"

"It's on the right, a sand-colored hotel with glass doors!" It wasn't difficult for her to see after that, as it was at the last building standing at the end of that street, allowing her to become locked onto it pretty quickly. "Got it! BLAKE, WEISS, HOLD ONTO ME!" Her teammates could also predict her plan pretty easily, so once Weiss held onto the rose's hand and Blake latched onto her shoulder, Ruby used her speed and practically warped her friends to the hotel.

The white red and black blur stopped at the entrance of the hotel before the three of them could be seen opening the doors from afar, and so Beanie continued to charge down the street while Gage's eyes darted between every angle he thought the Grimm could come from. Yang was still confused by what was going on, and by the time they reached the hotel building, her senses were still lagging.

"Yang, hop off!" Her cowboy-like 'chauffeur' commanded the blonde to dismount at the same time he did, and Yang nearly collapsed after her feet hit the pavement while Gage got off too and began to lead his horse by her harness, lowering his steeds head so she could get through the entrance. Everyone got inside the building immediately, and he didn't relax yet even after the doors were closed.

The girls, their dog, and his horse got in the middle of the lobby as he turned around to see the handle of a folded-up security gate that was above the hotel's two front doors. He of course reached for it right away, and Blake came over to help him after noticing it too. He pulled it down halfway before she grabbed a different end, and together they brought it down to the ground until it slammed behind the entrance to the building, completely ridding the place of any source of light from outside.

With the doors now completely barricaded, the teens were able to finally take a breath of fresh air… and Gage was quick to look over at the feline faunus once things were quiet again. "*sigh*...Thanks." He got a nod from her as she was trying to catch her breath, and he went back to check on the rest of their group.

...But he started with Beanie.. He patted her head to keep her calm, and walked her over behind the hotel's front desk while Team RWBY grouped up again. "*pant* ...Did they see us?" Ruby asked out loud, just for him to answer first before anyone else could. "I think we'll be alright if we keep our spirits up, along with our guard."

"Agreed." Weiss replied, just as they started to look around. The place was definitely a blessing compared to wherever they would've camped that night, and Yang even felt pissed that they didn't find this place when they were with Oobleck. It was a step up to be sure… but she still wanted to test her luck after she noticed that there was hay and old trash all over the place, "So uh… this is it?"

She felt selfish for asking such a thing and almost became worried that it would have affected the guy's perception of her, until he actually surprised the team with what he said next. After he calmed his horse and got her gear and saddle off, Gage helped Beanie lay down on the pile of hay that was behind the front desk. Then he reached into one of the desk's drawers, and pulled out a room key...

"No, there's a room I kept stocked with supplies on the fourth floor. We have to take the stairs though, so catch your breath now if you need to."

Yang regretted asking now once he mentioned stairs, and she whined like a child while Ruby hugged Zwei and did the same. Weiss and Blake just sighed simultaneously though, and watched as Gage gestured for the girls to follow him. Aside from Green Bean, their young rose was the only one who needed to relax after that mad dash… but she still had a lot of energy to go around, and didn't waver.

She walked after him first with her teammates coming along a few seconds later, as their new friend led them behind the front desk, past an old dysfunctional elevator, and to a door that opened up into the dreaded stairwell… which had a floor that was stained with dried blood. He had forgotten about it completely, and with a horde of Grimm nearby, he knew that he had to get the team's attention away from it. So just as he was about to let the girls through, Gage called over to Beanie one last time before he took the first step up the staircase,

"I… I'll be back girl, just sit sight!"

Then he kept the door at an angle that'd block the stain partially, and allowed for them to cross the threshold as he quickly went up the stairs while Ruby, Weiss, and Blake went right ahead and followed without noticing anything strange.

"Final stretch…" Yang still sighed as she looked up at the various flights of stairs that were above them, and chose to remain in the back so she could take her time. Being the rear-guard was always comforting too since the only thing the blonde just had to watch their backs for the most part… but as she took her first steps, she suddenly had the urge to check the door behind her just in case Green Bean chose to come after them.

That was when she glanced down at the blood stain by accident... and she somehow didn't point it out to everyone else. Yang had thought about how much negativity could spawn from mentioning it, and with a hungry horde of Grimm outside, she chose to forget about it and instead got another stupid idea in her head as she turned back around to catch up with the rest of their group...

…

Gage finally felt relieved after they had gone up two flights of stairs, and at the same time Ruby miraculously found the courage to get close and prod at him. She poked his side with her index finger as she got alongside him, and kept looking down at the ground instead of making eye contact. "I uh… think it's pretty cool that you have so many weapons..."

"Thanks. They all aren't technically mine though-" He said this and put his hand on Mistletoe as it was on his back, but Ruby didn't really pay any mind to that detail. She kept looking at the shotgun while Zwei was tucked under her arm like a stuffed toy, and the young leader blurted out her next question once she turned to face him directly. "Do they have names?!"

"...You have a knack for this sort of thing, huh?" Gage asked her, more so just to confirm his suspicion. Ruby squeaked out a 'yes' from within the depths of her nervousness, and he entertained her clear interest with a smile.

"Alright, let's have a little 'show and tell' then... But you start."

"Oh, okay! Well… _THIS_ is my sweetheart, Crescent Rose!~" The moment she was prompted, Ruby brought out Crescent Rose again with her free hand and went to town on telling him about it. Pretty soon she was talking his ear off, and he was actually interested in hearing about it.

He mostly just listened as the rose continued describing every inch of her 'sweetheart', and while he was distracted… Yang asked Weiss to hang back for a second while Blake was left alone. The heiress quickly became puzzled by this request, but adhered to it since it wasn't common for their brawler to be so discreet.

"Hey, so… i've been thinking about our 'scruffy' friend up there, and-"

"Let me guess... you think he's _**cute**_?" Weiss whispered, only to get a heated glare in return. It wasn't a flustered rant like she was expecting, so the blonde made it clear that she was trying to stay serious amidst being tired and it made the ice queen look away with instant regret being expressed.

It still didn't make Yang feel any better, and she only spoke once she was able to compose herself again. "Oh bite me, ice queen! *exhale* ...No, I think we should bring him back to Beacon with us." And despite the fact that Weiss felt bad for being rude, she didn't hesitate or hold back at all when it came to disagreeing with this strange idea. "What? Why?! We just met him! We don't even know if he's a danger to us either, and it'd be stupid for us to take that chance..."

"He got hurt fixing my stupid mistake! I at least owe him a visit to the nurse back at Beacon, and then some..." Yang fired back at her.

"I suppose it's… fair." Blake remarked as she stopped to turn back and watch them both silently argue with each other. Obviously they forgot about the edge her faunus ears gave her, and their faces made the stray smile and gesture for them to keep on moving. " ...And for the record, I'm sure the four of us could take him down easily."

"What if he's a criminal on the run? It'd explain why he's been here so long, and why he's so secretive too!' Weiss assumed that she already had the guy all figured out, and instead of pointing out that she had been wrong about people in the past, Yang oddly tried to keep things civil. "I'm sure he has his own reasons for both those things, and It's not like we don't have our own secrets to hide…"

On the other hand, Blake did the exact opposite and spoke her mind with no holds barred. "Also... the last guy you assumed was a criminal brought Neptune with him. Sooo maybe you shouldn't jump to conclusions that quickly." The stray's partner was surprised by this comeback, and Weiss had nothing to say.

There was probably some leftover resentment from the feline faunus after Sun was deemed a 'rapscallion' when the girls first met him, and the heiress couldn't blame her two friends calling her out on it. So she gave up on that front and presented a more plausible question to them both. It was a kind of a curve-ball too,

"Hmph… well, what if he wants to stay here?"

Her teammates began to stare at her like she was crazy, and made her feel like that question was beyond stupid without saying anything. It wasn't even answered as Weiss refused to drop it, and Blake eventually reasoned against it with her own experience being outside the kingdoms. "Having a potential injury is a death sentence out here, and if he's survived for this long, he'd know that by now. It just wouldn't be a smart move."

"Yeah, and i'm not okay with leaving here knowing that he could die. Huntresses are supposed to help people too, Weiss… you know that." Yang crossed her arms and shook her head before she gave her own input, but not without looking disappointed in her friend's hostility. There were obviously good points from both sides, but the blonde was just too stubborn in the end and Weiss was honestly too tired to care at this point.

She was still surprised that Yang could stand so firm while being more drained than the rest of their team, and made sure not to seem like she was flipping over on their side. Falling to the golden beauty's guilt trip or not, Weiss just decided to stay neutral in this debacle.

"*exhale* ...Fine, i won't stop you. But i refuse to be held responsible if this goes awry!"

She then stomped up the steps past Blake so she could get closer to Ruby, and the faunys looked back to see that her partner let a huge grin form across her lips. "Okay then, i'll ask him about it in a bit…"The golden girl was proud of herself for not backing down, but it wasn't that long until some nervousness could be felt on the inside, and her drowsiness got the better of her again. "*yawn!* ...After i get some beauty sleep..."

Everyone became spaced apart afterwards like nothing had happened, and soon they all stopped once they reached a door that was located on top of the fourth set of stairs. Ruby was still yapping while Gage opened it, and revealed the fourth floor to the team before he went through the doorway.

"...So basically, it's a sniper rifle and a scythe?" He asked the rose.

"Well when you say it like that it sounds boring…."

"N-No-That's way cooler than anything I could think of!"

However, soon all of Team RWBY went quiet when they followed through… and got weirded out by the sudden softness of the carpet that was now underneath their feet. It was like they'd been teleported back home to their dormitory building, but the correlation ceased after the girls turned to glance down the hall to their right. There was a long line of just room doors and lamps that were plunged in darkness, and that was when the team got some horror movie vibes from the place.

Luckily for them, Gage didn't force anyone to go down that corridor as the room he picked was right in front of the stairwell. He used the key to unlock the front door, and the team immediately threw themselves inside after he opened the place up for them.

He shook his hands to mock their fright as he entered, locked the door again after shutting it, and walked past a comfy looking couch that was on the left side of the room. The girls put Zwei down and had already started wandering around by then so they could get a feel for the place while also trying to forget that spooky hallway, and Gage did the same since he'd been away from here for the last six months.

Their room was of course decrepit and rotting, but appeared to be a suite of some kind as it had a bedroom, bathroom, and the open room that they were in currently. (which also had a small kitchen in it's right corner) It all looked like a decent place to stay for the night… even with the giant hole that was made in the left wall of the suite, as it provided the group with a nice elevated view of the city.

The team kept looking around for a little too long by now… so he made sure to get the first word in before they could voice any criticisms, and went with a small tour to break the silence, "There should be MRE's in the cupboard, and a few mattresses in the other room. You can have that couch too-" And as he turned towards the couch beside himself, Yang threw herself onto it like it was a trampoline. "MINE!" She claimed it, not caring that it was right next to the giant hole in the wall.

"It's a pull-out bed you know…" Gage murmured.

An audible groan came from her right away, as she felt too sluggish to get up and do anything further. Instead Yang committed to her laziness and didn't say another word as she closed her eyes, hugged the couch's cushions, and she powered down again. Tiny snores could be heard a few seconds later, and everyone else couldn't help but appear astonished by the blonde's speedy slumber.

No one could blame her in the end, and Gage was the first one to break away when things got quiet again. Ruby, Weiss, and Blake turned away as well, but just when it looked like they were going to start standing there, waiting for some sort of invitation to move around… he remembered what it was like to show some hospitality, and said that he'd be right back as he went into the other room to drag the beds out for them. But as expected, the three girls wordlessly chose to help him out with cleaning the place up anyway...


	3. Safehouse

**Author's Note: **You know not that long after I finished the last chapter I realized that this entire remake is going to be a flash back to 2013-14, for me at least… back when I was a freshman in HS, Sword Art Online was the shit, myself and everyone were playing Destiny 1 for days on end, and when RWBY was still in its infancy. Just simpler times compared to how things are now, and I'm totally gonna capitalize on that now.

Anyways, I just want to apologize in advance, because this chapter turned out to be shorter than i was expecting. I'm also sorry that it took so long for me to release this too, i just started working again, and writer's block kinda fucked with me for a bit while i was working on the newest chapter of this story's still-ongoing sequel. I just finished a major part of its current arc as well, and with _THIS _specific chapter now finished, I think I'm gonna chill for a bit until November rolls around. Spooky season is also my favorite time of the year, so i'm gonna enjoy it while it lasts.

Don't worry though, the next chapter will be longer for sure, and if everything stays as planned, we'll be done with this opening arc relatively soon... But until then, I hope you guys enjoy what's in store with this update, even if it is small!

**Song: **This Old Death by Ben Nichols

…

_**Chapter 3 - Safehouse**_

Dusk had fallen not that long after Yang fell asleep, and soon Mountain Glenn became shrouded in a dark blue hue shortly after Remnant's shattered moon began to look down on the city. Storm clouds could also be heard rolling in, but thankfully they arrived just after Ruby, Weiss, and Blake had their own cots set up for the night.

Three mattresses were set around a small gas lantern that was the only light source in the now pitch-black hotel room, and while Yang continued to snore softly on the couch, Gage re-entered the hotel room and shut the door silently behind himself,

"Welp... Beanie's finally settled, so things should be quiet enough for us to turn in for the night."

"We should _probably_ still take guard shifts though... just in case." Ruby suggested as she and Zwei both plopped down onto the mattress she picked, and Crescent Rose was set down on the ground next to her. Gage nodded slightly however, and snickered a bit as he limped back into the room after hearing this. "You can if you want. Either way i'm gonna be awake for a while, since that goliath ruined my afternoon nap…"

"E-Egh… yeah, sorry…" She could be heard mewling to herself as he passed the girls and went into the tiny kitchen that was nearby. However, Weiss just rolled her eyes at him and laid down on her mattress, while Blake just did the same with hers and stretched out a bit.

Then after Gage began to rifle through the cupboards that were near him, he turned over to the girls and tried to keep up a hospitality streak, "Anyways, are you three hungry at all?"

"Why, do you have a skinned rodent hidden in there…?" Weiss asked snarkily.

"Nope. Worse." She actually flinched after he seemingly amped up her insult, and the heiress half expected him to come over with some other dead animal in his hands… just to find out that he was simply messing with her. In actuality he just took out five of the MRE's that he mentioned earlier, and chose the Team's at random thanks to Weiss's sass.

They were all then handed different flavored rations, while the fourth bag was lightly tossed at the couch Yang was laying on. The blonde grumbled from the sound it made, but just stirred in her slumber for the most part. Ruby was the only one polite enough to thank Gage for it though, while Weiss and Blake just remained quiet after seeing what was offered.

"Yay, mine's got cookies!" The rose rejoiced, as he seemingly made a lucky guess for her. He also brought some waters for the girls, and since their little gas lantern still had a spot around it that they weren't using, he took it for himself as he slowly laid down on the cold floor.

Gage also put the bottles next to the light and grasped his aching leg afterwards, as Weiss began to look at the MRE she'd received. The entire thing was just gross in her mind, with the package being coated in dust and the flavor sounding detestable. "...Lemon Pepper Tuna?" She asked.

"-I-I'll trade you." Blake almost immediately made that offer upon hearing 'tuna', and they quickly traded their meals. Tuna for a vegetarian MRE, and right as the feline faunus was about to rip into the little bag she'd just gotten from Weiss… she stopped, and looked up at Gage.

Obviously it was fine when Ruby and Weiss both smiled at the fact that she jumped for the fish-flavored meal since they knew that she was a faunus. But when she noticed that their new acquaintance was trying to hide a sly grin as well… she remembered what he was trying to ask right as their group was ambushed by that pack of grimm a few hours ago.

No one else really processed it at the time aside from her… so now, instead of trying to deflect or ignore his expression, she chose to approach it head on. Abruptly bringing it up so he wouldn't have the chance to beat her to it.

"So earlier, before you got pounced on by that Beowulf… I couldn't help but notice that you asked about my bow..." The air grew still around her and Gage as they looked at each other simultaneously, until she didn't even try to hide her identity anymore. The stray was just curious at this point,

"...What gave me away?"

"It's… not what you'd expect." Gage replied, as he leaned up a bit and pointed at one of his turquoise eyes casually. "I saw that your eyes can reflect sunlight easily, and humans can't do that. We don't have that reflective layer because we can't see in the dark... Like the faunus can." Then halfway through his explanation, he reached over towards the gas lamp and turned the dial down so it wouldn't shine as brightly.

This action made the room darker, and soon enough… he swayed his head back and forth before he saw a amber light shine off of Blake's irises.

"I never really thought about that..."

She quickly became saddened by this realization and even scooted back on her mattress too… which caused Gage to think that this was somehow interpreted as a threat. Needless to say he put his hands up right away, and for her sake, he tried to remedy it by poking some fun at himself. "H-Hey, relax! I'm not a total hick… and I can keep secrets too, so you don't have to worry." He reassured her.

Luckily it did the trick, for the most part, and Blake eased up a bit as she re-adjusted her bow's placement nervously. "...Thank you. I'd rather keep it that way for the time being..." And after she turned away from the guy without looking him in the eyes, she went back to focusing on the MRE that Weiss had given her.

They both promptly started to eat whatever they found to be consumable in the small packages, and Ruby just tried to justify Blake secrecy without going into any details. "Y-Yeah… we're kind of fidgety with strangers. Y'know, being first-years and all that…" She muttered between consuming two diffrent cookies.

"I figured." Gage said with a nod, before he couldn't help but notice how different she was compared to the rest of her team. Noticing the age gap specifically, as Ruby looked like she would've been attending Signal Academy rather than one of the big-league huntsman schools. "Still though, I'm surprised that they'd let _you_ attend Beacon so early. You're what, like… sixteen?" He asked whilst pointing a finger at the young leader.

This was enough to make her pause as she tried to give Zwei the one oatmeal cookie that was left in her meal, and the rose couldn't help but feel a little self-conscious as she corrected him afterwards. "Fifteen…"

"Huh. You must know your stuff then."

"She tries-" Weiss remarked before she ate some of her meal's trail mix. Her tone wasn't condescending or snobby for a change, as this was actually a compliment, and it even made Ruby blush a bit. She was also pretty glad that their team's extrovert was snoring right now, otherwise Ruby would've surely died from embarrassment. "H-Hehe… Yang would probably be ranting and raving about me if she was awake, but then again, she is my big sister!"

She shared this tid-bit with him, and he became confused. Gage squinted his eyes immediately as he stared at Ruby and quickly looked back at Yang within seconds of each other. "Wait, really...?" He did a double-take as well, but soon chose to roll with it when he was unable to see the resemblance aside from their similar personalities.

Ruby was just about to tell him how often they both got that reaction, before she was rudely interrupted by an anthem of thunder could be heard rumbling in the distance. It sounded like it was getting closer too… and as it did, Beowolves and other various Grimm could be heard howling up towards the sky. This terrifying sound reverberated across the entire city, and Zwei would've joined in with it too if he hadn't been curled up next to Ruby. The corgi simply growled until she scratched his head gently, and he stopped.

It still alerted everyone negatively (except for Yang), as Weiss and Gage both turned to look at the giant hole that was in the wall behind their little spot, since it was where all the noise filtered in through. But as the heiress was about to put a hand on Myrtenaster, he reached out instead and tried to stop her, "It's alright, the storm just provoked them..."

She sighed with annoyance after being startled like that and couldn't help but feel frustrated too, as it just felt like the 'neighborhood' had gone silent not that long ago. "Oh great, they're awake again..." Weiss then sat back down on her own mattress while Gage continued to calm them down,

"...We'll be fine. Stuff like this usually passes by pretty quickly."

None of it really affected anyone following it's initial surprise… aside for Ruby. She couldn't help but pull Zwei closer to herself as she continued to stare out the hole in the wall and let the sounds of the thunderstorm get to her, as it was something she'd always hated since she was a child. It had always just been scary to hear.

However, Blake was the first person to notice how much it was clearly bothering their young leader, and as she slowly leaned in close to her, she just tapped on the rose's shoulder delicately after a good distraction came to mind.

"Hey… did you bring your headphones with you?" The stray asked her. Ruby nodded and went to take them out the second she'd remembered bringing them along, right before Blake patted her on the shoulder and inched back with a smile. "You took the first guard shift when we were here with Oobleck, so why don't you get some rest? We'll wake you if anything happens."

"Thanks Blake…"

Gage was beginning to hear a few rain droplets splash against the destroyed wall of their hotel room too, and he unknowingly asked them all to do the same thing. "Yeah, if you guys are trying to get some sleep then I'd start now before that monsoon arrives... I'll take the first watch too, just in case we get any visitors." He stated, whilst standing up and taking Mistletoe off of his back.

Weiss of course felt the need to interject after remembering how the guy's leg was injured… but soon she stopped herself as she realized that Mistletoe, his shotgun that could turn into a crossbow, was most likely the quietest weapon compared to the rest of Team RWBY's.

Bolts were certainly better than bullets when it came to keeping their position hidden, and so she reluctantly stayed quiet. Although, she still couldn't help but continue staring at Gage with suspicion. The heiress only stopped when he saw the dirty look she was giving him, and he acknowledged it with a short response.

"Or don't… it's up to you."

But for Blake and Ruby's sake, Weiss gave up her antics for tonight. Choosing to just give Gage another warning as she slowly reached over and turned off the small gas lantern that was between their mattresses. "*sigh* ...Just don't get us killed."

"That's the idea, 'snowflake..." He retorted dryly.

Then after their room was plunged back into darkness, Gage left them alone and limped over towards the hole in the wall so he could sit in front of it and look out towards the streets below. Setting his shotgun down next to him as he also began to open up the bacon/cheddar cheese MRE he'd picked out for himself.

As for the rest of Team RWBY… Ruby of course put on her red headphones and laid down next to Zwei with her eyes closed, while Blake just layed back onto her mattress and stared up at the ceiling.

Surprisingly the sounds of rain and thunder outside also felt soothing for Weiss, and soon she became relaxed enough to actually lie down. Eventually her and Gage would be the only ones left awake before general fatigue got the best of her, and the heiress dozed off without knowing it. Leaving their injured new friend to watch over this dark city by himself as the storm went on into the witching hours...

…

The storm seemed to kick up by the time 3 A.M. rolled around, and after the heavy rain could now be heard pelting against the walls of the hotel like it was hailing… Yang was slowly brought out of her deep slumber. Gently opening her sleepy lilac eyes as a lightning flash illuminated a good distance away from the city, and a deep wave of thunder followed it. Not a sudden crash, just a deep bellow that was only slightly alarming.

She then slowly raised herself off of the couch she was resting on, and sat normally on it as she rubbed her eyes and yawned. It took her a second to remember that she wasn't in their dorm room at Beacon, and after thinking back to all of the events that occurred within the last 24 hours, Yang scanned the pitch-black room for her teammates.

But as another flash of lightning lit up the room again, she was quickly able to see that they were all asleep on a few mattresses that were placed in front of her couch, and it was enough for the blonde to keep her guard down for the time being. A second later she stretched her legs out on the room's carpet, and accidentally stepped on the MRE that was tossed to her earlier.

The noise it made didn't wake anyone up thanks to the overbearing sound of the storm outside… but it did divert Gage's attention towards the blonde brawler. It broke him away from his trance-like survey of the city, and right then the two teens faced each other directly.

Yang saw that he was sitting in front of the giant hole in their room's left wall, giving her the side-eye as he appeared to have a small photograph in one of his hands. Yet, she also saw that this stranger had his injured foot hiked up on top of a six-pack of beer. A weird thing to do for sure, considering there were pillows nearby.

So trying her best to think of a way to calm the guy down, Yang quickly grabbed the MRE bag, read it's specific flavor, and raised it up in the air with one hand as she fumbled her words a bit. "H-Hey, t-thanks for the... hamburger dinner! Heh… It's actually a good guess… for me…" Only for him to smile and nod his head back at her.

She could easily see that Gage's eyes were red and tired like hers had been, and as she went to approach him… he made sure to put the picture he was holding back into one of his jacket pockets, before Yang stopped and tried not to make it look like she was staring at him too much,

"Is it alright if I join you?"

"...Go for it." He whispered.

Gage was sort of surprised that she didn't choose to just lay back down and sleep in until morning… but after he could see that she was blushing despite how dark the room was, he didn't give it too much thought and scooted over so she'd have enough room to sit down.

Yawning now, the brawler laid down on her side next to him and pressed her feet against the destroyed wall as she felt the cool air from outside brush against her skin. At the same time though, Gage couldn't help but notice that the air around this girl was really warm. Like she was a walking heater or something.

It was… welcoming, and while that sensation grew, Yang tried to inquire about why he was still awake. "You know, you should probably be resting right now. Otherwise your leg is gonna feel like it's on fire tomorrow morning…" She went with the indirect route whilst showing also some compassion, and because of this he was surprisingly open about it with her. Making sure to reply right away,

"I know, it's just… it's been a while, since I've had something like this." Gage answered as he took a second to look back at their small room before facing her again, "Usually I keep my eyes open at night until I physically can't, so now it's kind of strange for me to sleep voluntarily."

"Is that why you've got six little friends over there?~" Yang asked him this sarcastically in return, as she pointed over at the six pack of beer that was under his hurt foot. He was quick to move off of the bottles after that, and he still couldn't help but look away from her sheepishly.

"Y-Yeah... but I stopped myself. They've gotta be a decade old by now anyway, and I don't want to puke my guts up."

She snickered for a moment and was about to say something else as she reached towards the case… but then the brawler stopped herself, and became quiet amidst another lightning flash. It wasn't the cause of her silence though, and after Gage noticed the sudden change in attitude, he looked at her weirdly.

"What is it?" He actually sounded concerned and it pushed Yang to explain herself, since it seemed like their roles were now switched. "I was gonna… ask for one, but after what i caused earlier, it'd be another stupid decision on my part…" She sounded pretty subdued now too, and after seeing how bad she still felt about their 'goliath' incident…

"...Don't beat yourself up over that." He just casually waved it all off like it was nothing, as he'd already gotten over it long ago. "Because if you hadn't shown up, it would've just been another boring day out there in the wild. And to be honest, i've been craving human interaction since… well, my first month here."

'If _you_ hadn't'. Yang noticed that specific wording more than anything else, and after realizing that there was a good chance she was the first person he'd even seen in a long time… her spirits were uplifted again, as the blonde now felt obligated to tease him in her own 'playful' manner.

"In that case, I guess seeing my pretty face must've been… _refreshing_ for you.~"

She even leaned over more and gave the guy a tiny wink, just for him to snicker and move the case of beer bottles away from them both so the pack could be forgotten about. "Pfft, what happened to 'not getting any funny ideas'?" Gage asked before the blonde responded, sounding genuinely cheerful as her eyes also widened. "I just get cranky when i'm tired, and even then… I never said it applied to me."

Weiss really might've been right about _something_ today...

He was also surprised about the directness at first, then quickly figured that it was a joke, or she was just trying to make him blush on purpose since that would've been a nice change… but once he glanced back at Yang and saw that she was sitting up straight and looked to have scooted closer to him, he deduced that getting a bead on this fiery girl was impossible. "You're weird."

"Hmhm… says 'mr. rain-watcher'!" She chuckled to herself.

"It's _nice_, and there isn't exactly a fireplace that I can share with you… o-or anyone!"

Gage was quick to roll his eyes at her comment, and made sure to correct himself just as Yang was about to use his slip-up against him. But then, He seemingly turned it around on the blonde once he could tell that she was about to say something else.

"...Hmm. Actually, that doesn't sound too bad." Making sure to stop for a dramatic pause too as he leaned back a bit, and waited until Yang's cheeks became a little rosy before he seamlessly finished his sentence. "A warm room and comfy bed for _myself_, after roughing it out here for this long… that'd be pretty refreshing too."

"W-Well… I think we could help you with that." Whether it was a small roast aimed at Yang or not, she quit her blushing and tried to shift their conversation towards the one thing she asked Blake and Weiss about earlier when they were in the stairwell. And just when Gage turned and stared at her weirdly, the blonde presented this big question without hesitation, "The rest of my team, excluding Weiss, agreed that you should come back to Beacon with us. I-If you're okay with that, of course..."

Hearing that was a shock to be honest, and Gage became flabbergasted at the suggestion. Maybe a tad flattered too, as hadn't thought about being anywhere near a huntsman academy since he was around Ruby's age. Nevertheless it woke him up, as he leaned in closer to Yang with his turquoise eyes shining brightly through the darkness of the room.

"W-Wait are you talking about, like… enrolling-?" He asked nervously.

Yang quickly gave him a small nod of approval, and nearly mirrored his sudden movement to encourage this decision further. "...You're clearly skilled enough, and saving our team from a goliath should be enough to convince our headmaster. Especially if the rest of us vouch for you too!" Again Ruby came to mind, this time for the brawler, as she was convinced that Professor Ozpin could pull some strings for them again.

Gage sat up just as he heard this, and he brought his knees closer to his chest before his eyes became narrowed at her slightly. "You really want me to come with you, even though we haven't known each other for a day yet?"

"Um… Yeah."

"...Why?"

She froze after that, and caught off guard by the wonder in his voice. But soon after remembering the mix of Weiss's negativity throughout the day and the fact that he'd never even hinted at coming along with the girls, Yang understood his confusion. Maybe there was a trust issue there as well, but that only fueled her conviction. Unlike him, her 'big sister' instincts would've kicked in if there were any bad vibes, and this made her believe that he was trustworthy.

Because in the brawler's mind, Gage seemed like an okay person. Sure there was a mysterious (metaphorical) aura surrounding him as well, kind of similar to how Blake was perceived when she was a new student at the academy, but that feeling would probably fade once he opened up more. Yang also couldn't lie and say that he wasn't alluring either, and he also was able to work with her 'humor' pretty well too, which was another plus.

It was simply all welcoming on her side… so leaving that kind of spirit out here to eventually die just wasn't feasible, huntress-in-training or not, and she explained this to him thoroughly,

"Huntsmen and Huntresses are supposed to help people. Whether it's saving someone from the Grimm like you did me, or just inspiring them to follow in your footsteps. So… helping you like this is just the right thing to do. And I... I think you'd be a great person to have around the academy..."

All he could say after that was, "Well… do you really think i'm 'Beacon material'? With a small grin whilst using his fingers to make air quotes.

"We'd like you to be, or well… most of us. I think?'" She questioned herself oddly and glanced back at her sleeping friends, and eyed Weiss specifically for a second before she turned back and shrugged at Gage. "Eh, you've got my vote at least."

"Then I guess I don't have much of a choice-"

Gage said this sarcastically as he was about to copy her demeanor, but he was cut off as Yang suddenly lunged at him out of the blue and hugged his left arm tightly with a smile. "YES! You'll love it there, I promise!" And even though she managed to make him jump from fright, the blonde didn't hesitate to pull him closer, as she unknowingly pressed his arm against her chest,

"Hmhm… now how about a drink to celebrate?~" Immediately after realizing that she was gonna pester him about the beer to no end, Gage sighed and laughed for a second before he refused, but not without blushing a little bit, "Nope! I'd rather not get thrown up on tonight-" Only for Yang to pull her body back and whine at him with her own small giggle,

"Oh come onnnn!"

They ended up playing off of each other like this for the next ten minutes until Gage just handed her the water bottle he was drinking from earlier, and she finally gave it a rest so she could eat the Hamburger MRE that was given to her. The rest of the night became quieter soon enough, as the brawler just kept asking if he had any wild stories that he was willing to share. Like if he'd ever seen rare grimm types out in the country, or a bigfoot, or a... chupathingy?

Something like that. However… neither of them knew that Ruby was actually watching them both in secret. She'd woken up randomly and was about to go back to sleep, before she noticed the two of them sitting, talking and laughing together. After a while it almost looked like they just were old friends doing their thing, and it made the rose feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside for her older sister's sake.

She could only imagine what Yang must've been feeling or thinking as she just watched and listened attentively to Gage from then on. Smiling at him throughout the stormy night, and as dawn slowly approached Mountain Glenn.

…

**The Next Morning...**

…

Four hours later, an alarm from Ruby's scroll shattered the silence of the hotel room, as an excerpt from _This Will Be The Day_ began to repeat itself until the rose woke up and turned it off. (Think the level up sound from Grimm Eclipse?) She honestly forgot to disable it thanks to her morning classes at Beacon, and it made her panic as a result.

Blake also jolted awake too and placed a hand back onto Gambol Shroud's hilt, but stopped once she realized that the noise wasn't grimm-related. Sighing with relief just as Weiss groaned and covered her ears,

"S-Sorry!" Ruby whispered to them.

They both just mumbled for her not to worry or something similar, before their young leader exhaled and turned over to where Gage and Yang had been sitting during the night. The two teens were both still sitting in front of that hole in the wall, as they both were just laying on their backs next to each other.

Gage had actually been close to dozing off by the time the alarm went off, which caused him to lean up and look over towards the others slowly. Yang was wide awake though, and she jumped up with excitement the second she heard her teammates talk amongst each other.

The blonde then climbed off of the ground and stood up straight as she pointed both of her hands towards their new friend in a way that looked like she was a magician showing off a successful illusion. "Hey guys, guess who's coming with us?!~" Yang cheered in a singsong type of voice.

She was expecting some sort of loud response, but only heard Weiss let out a deep sigh before Ruby or Blake could do anything. Though eventually the stray looked over towards Gage and smiled at him once she wiped her sleepy amber colored eyes. "I'm not sure what the right response is, so... 'welcome aboard'?"

He just gave her a small nod while Ruby spoke to him anxiously, and slowly picked Zwei up in her arms to wake the corgi up. "Yeah… I was gonna ask to come with us yesterday, but I got kind of nervous…" She mumbled, just as Yang rolled her eyes and smiled back at Gage again,

"Don't worry sis, i doubt he would've said no to either of us."

It was by this time that Weiss chose to rise up from her mattress, and she could barely open her eyes due to the fact that she fell asleep by accident. It didn't stop her from asking her partner about that alarm though, "Mmph… Ruby, that time is it?"

"Seven A.M.-" The rose knew purely from her morning normal routine, and thus she said this casually. Weiss on the other hand… she nearly blew a gasket, and hysterically explained why.

"What?! We have to be at the bullhead's pickup-zone by 7:30!"

The heiress then wiped some drool off of her lip, blushed, and picked Myrtenaster off of the ground right as the rest of the girls rushed to get a move on. However, Gage just grabbed Mistletoe as it was on the ground next to him and rubbed his face tiredly, "What place did they choose for their LZ?" He asked Weiss politely.

"I don't know-" She was quick to take her scroll out and check the message they'd sent, which contained coordinates and a picture. Although, she only could describe it briefly to him during her short fit of frustration. "Some… park in the center of the city with fountains, and a statue!"

Gage nodded his head again much to her surprise, as he could recall that location from memory. It was the least destroyed part of the city afterall, "Embry… yeah, we can get there in twenty-five' if we're fast enough-!" That was all the girls needed to hear for them to head towards the hotel room's door after Zwei and the rest of their gear was gathered.

"Then lead the way!" Weiss yelled at him.

She then threw the door open and headed towards the stairwell while Gage stumbled in his effort to stand, until Yang came over and pulled him onto his feet. The brawler was about to put his arm over her shoulder too in case he needed help, but he stopped her. Then they both just walked out the front door after the rest of Team RWBY while the blonde grumbled to herself angrily,

"Rrrgh, why are we always late for these things?!"

…

Another twenty minutes of walking occurred after they left the hotel behind, and because of the sudden rush to get out the door again… morning fatigue set in halfway-through their short journey. Block by block it seemed to get better, at least for Ruby, Yang, and Blake. Weiss appeared to be physically tired the entire time, so she was given the job of carrying Zwei the entire way.

Gage also seemed to mirror her exhaustion… but that was mostly because it took some effort to get Green Bean saddled up in a timely fashion. Now he was thankfully able to rest as he rode her alongside Team RWBY, and just enjoyed the quiet ambience of the city. Luckily for them the thunderstorm also passed during the night, which left Mountain Glenn's streets dampened with drying water droplets. They could be seen sparkling lightly as the teens pressed on towards their pickup location, and it felt oddly refreshing once they reached the park.

It was gated and also looked like it took up another city block, but it strangely hadn't been overgrown by plants like the rest of Mountain Glenn. There were just large fields of dead grass, stone paths, a few fountains that were filled with disgusting greenish water, and lastly a large unfinished statue of… well, a horse. But honestly, if there were any gravestones nearby... it wouldn't be too far off from looking like a cemetary.

A cawing crow could be heard in the distance too, before the girls stopped dead in their tracks upon entering the park. That was when the thrusters of an airship could be heard rapidly approaching the area, but no one could really tell what direction it was coming from. They just scanned the city's skyline in anticipation for it while Gage looked over at the girls and tried to ask them a few nervous questions about Beacon, "So i don't have to be seventeen to be a first-year, right?"

"No. Where'd you hear that?" Yang asked him in return, just as they all began to walk down one of the stone paths towards one of the open grassy fields. He ended up just shrugging at her, "I just assumed because of training plans and all that." Before the blonde looked over at him with a raised eyebrow again, "Wait... how old are you?"

"Eighteen... and a half, i think." Gage answered. He then glanced over at the others and was quick to ask them what month it was, "Hey, it's June, right?!"

"YUP!" Ruby replied right away, just as she jumped up onto a nearby park bench and carelessly walked across it's edge like a tightrope. The brawler was surprised by this to be honest, as she thought that the guy looked like he was twenty at least. Either way she stared back at him with wide eyes before he noticed and nervously began to follow the others, "Then yeah, eighteen and a half... Y-You'll see once I get myself cleaned up…"

"Aww, does that mean you're doing it for me…?~"

Yang teased him again with another sassy remark, and it was enough for Gage to just sigh and hang his head down low without saying anything else. He was still smiling though, but tried to hide this expression from her as the two teens (and Beanie) caught up with the rest of Team RWBY.

It was at this time that the bullhead finally came into view, as it actually flew over the group from behind and slowly started to descend into the park, landing a few yards away from everyone in the middle of one of the various fields of dead grass.

Blake and Weiss were both relieved by the sight of the airship, while Ruby and Yang just stretched a bit. Gage still appeared to be slightly anxious too, as he stopped a few feet behind the rest of the girls and dismounted Green Bean sluggishly. Nearly stumbling onto the grass once his bad leg touched the ground again, but he was able to catch himself just as the ship's landing gear extended outwards and pressed down against Remnant's grassy surface.

Soon one of it's large side doors opened and was lowered in front of the Team, right as the bullhead's co-pilot could be seen standing inside of the ship's passenger bay. He was standing there and was about to walk towards the group… before he stopped and looked confused by something. "Whoa, we heard you were bringing someone back, but i wasn't expecting this!"

"What-?" Weiss couldn't tell what he was talking about, until she turned around and… remembered that Gage had his horse with him. A soul-crushing breath escaped from her then, as she knew they were a packaged deal. But right as she was about to say something to the pilot, Yang practically jumped to give him a sudden offer, "If you guys haul the horse, I'll give you fifty lien each!"

She was thinking on her feet and blindly offered the man some money, only for him to lean back a bit. He was surprised by this… but didn't turn it down. He simply raised the visor on his white helmet and squinted at the girl curiously,

"Can you even afford that?"

"Hmph. No… but i can." The heiress interjected. She scoffed right as Yang was about to say yes, and took out her own stash of lien. No one really asked why they both brought money with them in the first place, but that was beside the point. Weiss just tossed a lien card to the co-pilot as she approached the ship, even as Gage was about to tell her not to.

He didn't go through with it however, since he figured that it wouldn't stop her. So instead he just watched as she turned around to face everyone, and tried to downplay her own action.

"I-I just… I just want to get home faster, that's all!" She stammered, all while she continued to hold Zwei close to herself and kept hugging him like he was a stuffed animal. Gage became speechless after that, right as the main pilot spoke up and shouted back at the teens with contempt,

"*sigh* ...Alright, but if that horse makes a mess, then you five are cleaning it up!"

Everyone agreed… hesitantly, and soon began to enter the airship while their new friend exhaled heavily and took one last look back at Mountain Glenn. He also got Beanie to turn her head and glance in the same direction with one of her eyes before the horse huffed slightly, and began to walk towards the bullhead without instruction.

Every abandoned building and skyscraper seemed to be looking down on their group now… which creeped Gage out a bit after he realized just how long he'd been out here. The entire time he just pictured this place as an old city… when it was truly an urban jungle. A forgotten relic that was now clearly trying to get him to leave, and with the rising sun now shining brightly in the sky, that message became clear.

Gage then took in one last breath, and turned towards the airship without looking back again. Yang and Blake both helped him push Green Bean into the ship's passenger bay while Ruby and Weiss both strapped themselves into their seats, and the co-pilot sat back down in the cockpit with his partner.

Then after Gage was able to get his horse to lay down in the back of the passenger bay, himself, Yang, and Blake all sat down in different seats as the bullhead's bay door closed back up. It's thrusters started back up again, and right when everyone could feel the ship slowly rise back up into the air… he glanced over at Weiss again,

"Weiss? ...Thank you, for doing that."

He didn't get a response, only a small nod as the heiress tried not to look him in the eye. Which was fine, since he was stressed enough already. So he was quick to lean his head back and rest again, whilst keeping one eye on Green Bean in case they encountered any turbulence.

However, before he could 'accidentally' fall asleep for the remainder of the flight to Beacon Academy, Yang leaned out from her own seat a bit and shouted at him once again. Her lilac eyes now shining brightly as they both shared another moment, and their bullhead rose above Mountain Glenn before it began to fly off towards the City of Vale...

"Hey. You're not gonna regret this, Gage!"

"Heh… I know i won't."


End file.
